


The Secret Lives of Tug Boats

by tlong0038



Category: Original - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:46:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23544868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tlong0038/pseuds/tlong0038
Summary: The lives and relationships of a fleet of tug boats and their crews in Halifax, Nova Scotia





	1. Chapter 1

The two tug boats bobbed in the pre-darkness on the choppy waters of Halifax harbour as they steamed out of the harbour and toward the Atlantic Ocean. The red and green marker lights on the Angus L MacDonald Bridge winked in the darkness. The dark and turgid water of the harbour blurbled to white foam under the force extorted by a pair of triple expansion steam engines acting the tugs boats’ bronze propellers. The marker buoys marking the boundaries of the main shipping channel rocked slowly back and forth in the sluggish current. The lights of downtown Halifax cast a bright yellow-orange glow over the water. In the sky over head, the thin sliver of the new moon was partially obscured by scudding clouds as it slowly sank toward the horizon. The first, faint glow of dawn imperceptibly painted the eastern horizon just above the waterline, out of sight beyond the dark outline of McNabs Island. The glow of the Halifax waterfront faded and then disappeared.   
As the two tugboats motored out of the Eastern Passage, the lights of Halifax were fully eclipsed by McNabs Island. The coast spread itself out behind them as a dark formless shape between the water and the sky. In the distance the lights of Ferguson’s Cove and Ketch Harbour glinted faintly in the darkness. The last lights from shore faded into the early morning darkness.in the pilot house of the larger of the two tug boats, the only source of light was the harsh blue electronic glow of a radar screen mounted next to the helm.   
The man at the helm was tall and thin with biceps covered in faded tattoos. The muscles underneath were like braided steel cables. He had a lean, weather beaten face and clear blue eyes. Scarred and weather beaten hands gripped the helm. Unkempt tufts of dark coloured hair stuck out here and there from under his battered baseball hat. His name was Danny Johnson. He was forty but looked closer to fifty. He had left home shortly after he had turned sixteen and gone to sea not long afterward. His father had left home one day when he was nine and had never returned. Danny had no idea what had happened to him. His father leaving had been no great loss in Danny’s eyes either. What Danny remembered most about his father was that he hit the bottle a lot, and when he wasn’t doing that he was hitting other people. The real blow in Danny’s life had been the death of his mother when he was fourteen. She had been killed one January night when a drunk driver had run her off the road. Her unexpected death had left Danny adrift. He had been left with an uncle who had never really wanted him to begin with and with whom Danny had never really gotten along. On his sixteenth birthday, Danny had dropped out of school, walked down to the docks and signed on with the first freighter that would take him. She had been a bulk freighter bound for Japan with a load of iron ore, called the Ocean Star. As Danny had watched the coast sliding below the horizon he had felt a weight lift from his shoulders that he hadn’t even know was there. He was no longer adrift.   
The Ocean Star was owned by Ocean Marine Shipping Incorporated and Danny proved to be a natural sailor. He spent the next fifteen years climbing through the company’s ranks from a raw deck hand to second officer. During the intervening fifteen years Danny had sailed around the world four times. He had seen storms, war and had been shipwrecked twice. He had been on a track eventually become the Commodore of the Ocean Marine fleet, but a single instant of misjudgment had changed all that. It not completely been Danny’s fault, but the Board of Inquiry had not seen it that way, despite all the evidence to the contrary. He had only made second officer the year before and he had had the night watch on the Ocean Embassy. They had been transiting across the Indian Ocean from Mozambique to Mumbai with a cargo of twenty thousand tons of cement. It had been monsoon season and a tropical cyclone had blown up. Unbeknownst to the crew, Ocean Marine had been experiencing financial difficulty and had undertaken a number of cost cutting measures. The company had ignored the recommendation of the Chief Engineer and had rebuilt the Ocean Embassy’s electric generator, rather than replacing it.   
As a result the Ocean Embassy had become beset by the storm and in the middle of the night the rebuilt generator had failed. The Ocean Embassy had drifted in the dark while the engineering crew had attempted to restore power. They managed to fix the generator, but not quickly enough to prevent the Ocean Embassy from colliding with another ship. The ship in question had been the flagship of the Royal Crown Line, the Duchess Charlotte. In the dark, in stormy weather and without her radar beacon, radio or running lights, the Ocean Embassy had been lost among the many false radar echoes generated by the writhing ocean. The long slender bow of the Duchess Charlotte, designed for piercing through the waves with maximum hydrodynamic efficiency, had struck amidship. She had cut a hole in the hull ten feet deep and stretching from the strength deck to six feet below the waterline. Danny had instinctively sounded the collision alarm, but almost needn’t have bothered. Anyone who had not already been awake due to the storm had been bodily tossed out of their bunks and onto the deck by the collision with eighty thousand tons of ocean liner striking the Ocean Embassy at a speed of twenty five knots.   
The captain had entered the bridge in his pajamas and bathrobe demanding to know what had happened, having been thrown halfway across his cabin by the impact. He had blanched when he had seen the Duchess Charlotte blazing with light in the driving storm, the knife edge of her bow buried in the side of his ship.The sound of grinding metal had filled the air as the two ships had ground against each other, wallowing in the storm, the bow of the Duchess Charlotte working back and forth, widening the gaping wound in the ship’s side. Danny’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden motion of a large pair of eyes flicking into existence and sliding back and forth across the wheel house windows.   
A deep, gruff voice with a noticeable Scottish brogue spoke as if out of nowhere. “Skipper, we’re almost at the outer marker.”   
“Thanks, Frank,” replied Danny. He turned to his First Mate, Randy Alderman. Randy was a big broad shouldered man with clear blue eyes and sandy blond hair. “Ahead Dead Slow,” he said.  
Randy nodded. “Aye sir, Ahead Dead Slow.” Randy had enlisted in the Canadian Navy right out of high school and had mustered out as a Master Seaman ten years later. That itself had been ten years ago, but he had never lost the military bearing. The brass housing of the engine order telegraph glowed slightly in the early morning light. It dinged! as Randy moved the indicators from Full Ahead to Ahead Dead Slow. A second later, it dinged! again as Chief Engineer John Haywood answered the command. The vibrations in the deck plates changed pitch and abated as the engine bled off speed.   
The apparently disembodied voice that Danny had addressed as Frank belonged to the tug boat. Frank had been built in Aberdeen, Scotland by Dale Maritime Construction as Marine Franklin, but nobody ever called by his registered name. To all the other tugs in the Citadel Marine fleet and their crews, he was simply Frank. Frank has been built as a deep ocean salvage and rescue tug. Frank was a hundred and sixty feet long and weighed a thousand tons. From his keel plates to the top of his two masts, Frank was eighty feet tall. His power plant consisted of a twelve hundred horsepower triple expansion steam engine fed by two Scotch boilers.   
The sun was just beginning to rise above the horizon. The sky was suffused with a rosy pink glow and the ocean was slowly turning from inky black to iron grey to cobalt blue. Danny raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the horizon. Frank’s eyes slid back and forth across the wheelhouse windows, searching the empty ocean. The wheelhouse was filled an expectant silence, as Danny, Frank and Randy waited. Danny could hear the tromp of heavy work boots and murmur of voices down on the deck as Deck Chief Andy Masterson gave orders to the deck crew and they responded in turn. The sun climbed steadily higher into the sky, which gradually turned from the rosy pink of dawn to a bright, pearlescent blue.  
The sun was well above the horizon by the time anybody spoke. “They’re late,” said Frank.  
Danny and Randy both looked at their watches and then at the clock mounted on the bulkhead. Danny picked up a pair of binoculars hanging from the binnacle housing Frank’s compass and scanned the horizon. It was empty.   
Danny and Randy looked at each other and then at the large square pupils filling the wheelhouse windows. Danny looked at the clock on the bulkhead again. “He’s right,” said Danny after a while, “they’re late.”  
Frank gave a rumbling snort. “Well of course I’m right,” he said. “Captain Andover is almost never on time. Scrapper’s torch, sometimes I wonder why the Cumberland Line lets him go to sea at all.”  
Danny turned to Randy and said, “why don’t you get on the horn and see if you can raise them.”  
Randy nodded.”Maybe they’re having engine trouble,” he said. He stepped around the the helm and picked the radio phone handset out of its cradle on the bulkhead. “Joseph A Cumberland, this is Marine Franklin,” he rattled off their latitude and longitude, “please state your location and status. Do you require assistance? Over.” No sooner had he finished speaking than the deep bass note of a ship’s horn sounded in the distance. Randy picked up the binoculars again and scanned the horizon. At the same moment, Frank shifted his gaze his gaze in the indicated direction. A black smudge appeared on the horizon. The deep bass Ahooooooo! of a ship’s horn sounded again across the water. The black smudge grew larger.   
Frank’s gaze narrowed and Randy adjusted his binoculars. “Well,” said Frank, “it’s about fuckin’ time.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lives and relationships of a fleet of tug boats and their crews in Halifax, Nova Scotia

The dark smudge on the horizon grew steadily larger. As it got closer it gradually resolved itself in the early morning haze. Through his binoculars, Randy could just pick out the ship’s name stencilled in white letters on the bow, just above the anchor, Joseph A Cumberland. Cumberland blew his horn again and the long, deep note echoed over the water, shattering the still morning air. A long trail of black smoke from his funnel hung in the air behind him. It drifted on the morning breeze like a dirty banner. Joe sounded his horn for a third time.  
“Well, come on,” said Frank to no one in particular. “Its time to go to work.”  
Danny nodded in agreement, and the engine telegraph seemed to ring of its own accord, as Frank put his engine in gear. The shivering of the deck plates increased in intensity as the engine telegraph rang for Half Ahead. A deep, broad V of white water curled away from Frank’s bow as he motored toward the steadily growing speck on the horizon. Under his stern, Frank’s single bronze propeller thrashed the water to blurbling white foam as his propeller shaft spun under the influence of Frank’s 1,200 horsepower triple expansion steam engine.

It took Frank and Alice approximately twenty minutes to steam out from the marker bouy that marked the outer entrance to Halifax harbour and the entrance to the main shipping channel to where Joe Cumberland was slowly steaming toward them. The sun was well above the horizon now and the scudding clouds that earlier obscured the setting moon had drifted off and were little more than a distant smudge on the horizon.   
Joe Cumberland was a container ship and he was tired from a long voyage. He had come from Shanghai with a load of several thousand shipping containers bound for various parts of Canada and the United States. He was seven hundred feet long and weighed ninety thousand tons. His hold was filled from the keel almost all the way up to the bridge windows with more than twenty thousand shipping containers. The words “Cumberland Maritime Services” were stencilled in large white letters on a medium blue hull.  
When Joe spoke it was with the deep rumble of a one hundred thousand horsepower marine diesel engine. “Frank! Alice!” he boomed joyfully upon sighting the two tugboats. “How are you? It’s been awhile.”   
“Hi Joe,” replied Alice. “Have a good passage?”  
Joe looked down from his lofty position on the two tugboats as they plowed through the morning swells. He gave the impression of a casual shrug. “It could have been worse,” he replied in his Texas twang. He had been built in Galveston by Malin International Marine Construction. “We had an encounter with pirates coming out of the Straight of Malacca,” he said, “and we hit a patch of bad weather in the Indian Ocean.”  
As Joe spoke, Frank spun around in a tight circle and carefully eased in close to Joe’s port side. On the big container ship’s other side, Alice was doing the same. The tugboats bobbed in the long wake that curled off of Joe’s blunt bow and rolled down his long hull. “Oh, by the way,” said Joe to Frank, “I saw one of your brothers in Jakarta.”  
“Really?” asked Frank. He had been built as one of a class of five Ipland class deep ocean salvage and rescue tugs. “Who?”  
“It was your third brother, Sampson.”  
A note of excitement crept into Frank’s voice. “And how is he?” he asked. Frank had four class brothers. Ipland was the oldest, having been built first, next was Husky, then Hercules, then Sampson. Frank was the last and the youngest. The last time Frank had seen any of his class brothers, had been the year before last. Husky had come into the Citadel Marine yard to have his aft deck winch replaced. He had lost it in a storm. It had been ripped off of its mounts as Husky had been towing a car carrier that had lost engine power. Wind and currents had combined to push the car carrier into the Bay of Fundy as the tide had been going out and the two ships had been in danger of grounding. Husky had been attempting to turn his charge around and head back out to sea where there was room to manoeuvre and the wave action was less violent when a rogue wave had caught him fully broadside in the middle of his turn. The sudden snap roll had left Husky’s skipper momentarily standing on the port side wheel house door. At the same moment, the sudden strain of the maneuver, coupled with the sudden shift in the centre of mass in the heavy winch had sheared off the heads of the bolts holding the winch in place on deck and the heavy piece of machinery slid overboard into the writhing ocean. Then Husky had regained his centre of balance and rolled back onto his keel. He had stayed in Halifax for a week. Frank had not seen Husky since, but had heard that he was working towing and salvage jobs on the west coast.  
“Oh, Sampson’s well enough,” replied Joe. “He was about to go into dry-dock to be re-engined.” The big container ship appeared to think for a second or two. “That was at least three months ago,” he said, “so the work is probably finished now.”  
“So his boiler problem has been fixed then?” asked Frank. Sampson had always been plagued by bad welds in his boiler tubes.  
“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that,” replied Joe. “He never mentioned anything like that to me. All I know is that he was getting a sixteen cylinder diesel engine.”  
Frank wasn’t surprised by Joe’s observation that Sampson hadn’t mentioned his boiler problems. He’s always played things close to the waterline, the tugboat thought to himself, that was true even during our sea trials. It had taken extensive testing after their shakedown cruise to discover the slow steam leak, which Sampson had no doubt been aware of, but hadn’t told anybody about. The problem weld has been deep in the boiler, which made it almost impossible to access. Fixing the problem would have necessitated fabricating a new boiler from scratch. As this would not necessarily fix the problem, as the problem itself was a manageable one and as Sampson’s owners were uninterested in spending the substantial amount of money it would cost to have him fitted with a new boiler, Sampson had been slightly underpowered. It seems that’s changed, Frank thought to himself, not that he expected Sampson to show it, he was never very good at dealing with his emotions, Frank thought to himself. Frank had always wondered if this was due to some sort of hidden defect in Sampson’s design. Frank had never been able to determine what this might be however, but Joe’s run-in with Sampson had jogged Frank’s memory.   
“Oh, that reminds me, Joe,” said Frank, as they go under way, “Gladstone is in port.”  
“Really?” replied the container ship, sounding delighted. Joe and Gladstone had been built in adjacent dry-docks at almost the same time. Joe’s keel had been first. Gladstone’s had been laid three weeks later. “When did he make port?”  
“Two days ago-,” began Frank.  
“Really?” asked Joe, surprised, “that’s unusual. What happened?”  
“Not totally sure,” admitted Frank. “I didn’t bring him in. You’d have to ask Masson and Victor. They were on harbour duty that day. I was down for maintenance, but his schedule is all shot to hell now. Coasties have been all over him since he tied up. He’s not supposed to leave for at least another three or four days.”  
Lines snaked overboard from Joe’s deck. One of Frank’s deck hands caught it and looped it around Frank’s stern capstan. Another line went over the side and landed in a coil on Frank’s foredeck where it was quickly secured to his bow capstan. On Joe’s other side Alice’s deck crew was performing the same operations. A flurry of commands and instructions went back and forth between Joe’s bridge and the two tug boats.

It took much longer for Frank and Alice to bring Joe into the container terminal than it taken them to go out and meet him. The Halifax container terminal was located at the base of the peninsula on which the city of Halifax had been built, where it jutted out into Bedford Basin, dividing the harbour from the much smaller Northwest Arm. Frank, Joe and Alice threaded their way through the various fishing boats, ferries and tour boats.   
Joe Kinneman watched their progress through a large pair of marine binoculars through the large windows of his office on the upper storey of the red brick building that housed the Citadel Marine Salvage and Towing Company’s quayside office. A large, battered looking oak desk dominated the centre of the room. The surface of the desk was covered with paperwork. A scanner tuned to the marines channels chattered in the background. The wall behind Kinneman’s desk was dominated by a large paper chart of Halifax Harbour tacked to the wall with thumbtacks. Black and white photographs depicting the various tug boats, dredgers and other craft that Citadel Marine had owned in its history hung here and there on the walls. The space immediately in front of Kinneman’s desk was occupied by a pair of blue leather chairs. The space behind his desk was occupied by a high backed brown leather captain’s chair. It had come from his grandfather’s tug boat. The opposite wall over looking the harbour was made up a series of large windows, which afforded Kinneman an unobstructed view of all of the activity on the harbour from the harbour mouth past McNab’s Island to the Bedford Narrows. He watched as a cruise ship came out of the morning haze, gracefully pirouetted on the spot and slid sideways into her berth at Pier 21. The binoculars slid back to Frank, Joe and Alice, threading their way through the ferries crisscrossing back and forth across the harbour between Halifax and Dartmouth as the two tugboats and the container ship made their way toward the mouth of the Bedford Narrows. As he watched their progress, a V of white water rippled across the surface of the harbour, as a low shape arrowed across the busy harbour toward Frank, Joe and Alice. The words “Pilot Boat” could be made out written in black letters on the side of its low, white deck house.  
Joe Kinneman was a third generation tug boat sailor. His grandfather, Captain Jason Ballard, had founded Citadel Marine Salvage and Towing with one tugboat and one dredger. Over the next sixty years, Kinneman’s grandfather, and his father, Walt Kinneman, had built Citadel Marine into one of the leading towing and salvage companies in eastern Canada. Joe Kinneman was a tall man with strawberry blond hair, light blue eyes and a scrubby goatee. A faded tattoo wrapped itself around his right bicep. A class ring from the British Columbia Institute of Technology glinted on his right hand in the morning sunlight streaming in through the large windows overlooking quay and the harbour. He had gone to work for his father when he was seventeen, first working dockside in high school, then working on the boats when he was home from college over the summer holidays between semesters. After graduating from BCIT with a degree in marine engineering and his bridge officer’s rating he had worked his way up from being a deckhand to eventually being Frank’s skipper. He had enjoyed the challenges of being a tug boat captain and would have stayed there, except that his father had retired and Joe had taken over running the company. That had been five years ago. Frank, Joe and Alice drew level with the Citadel Marine quay, Frank and Alice sounded their horns, the long, low note echoing off over the water. Kinneman reached above his head and yanked on a hemp cord. A long, low note issued from the three airhorns mounted over the wall of windows on the building’s exterior. Banscot and Banstar, who were both tied up at the dock sounded their horns in response to Frank, Joe and Alice as they passed in front of the company docks, leaving a long trail of disturbed water in their wake.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lives and relationships of a fleet of tug boats and their crews in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Captain Arnold Dunwood watched from Masson’s wheel house as Frank, Joe and Alice emerged from the controlled chaos of the outer harbour and into the quiet waters of Bedford Basin on the far side of the Bedford Narrows. Masson and Victor bobbed in gently in the sheltered waters of the inner harbour. In the far distance the Angus L MacDonald suspension bridge described a curved, dark line against distant horizon where the sky ran down to meet the sea. The three smokestacks of the Dartmouth power station thrust up into the mid morning sky like admonishing fingers. The sound of Joe’s horn echoed across the water as he cleared the Narrows.

Dunwood looked at his watch. “He’s late,” he said.

Masson’s voice carried the suggestion of a shrug. “Captain Andover is always late,” he replied. “I wonder what his excuse is this time.” Masson’s sixteen cylinder diesel engine rumbled to life and a pencil thin column of smoke rose from his stumpy, conical funnel.

Dunwood lifted the radiophone’s hand set from its cradle on the bulkhead. He put to his ear. “You ready go to work Bob?”

The gravelly voice of Bob Bentsen crackled in Dunwood’s ear. “Always,” he said. Dunwood heard him say to someone else, “come on Victor, time to earn your fuel bill.”

Fifty metres off of Masson’s port side, Victor’s engine revved to life and together the two tugs left their anchorage. They angled out into the middle of the basin where, where Joe had cut his engines. They motored out into the main shipping channel where Frank, Joe and Alice drifted in under their shared momentum into the inner basin from the busy outer harbour. Bedford Basin was a broad, deep, elongated bowl that formed the estuary of the Sackville River where it emptied out into the Atlantic Ocean. Bedford Basin had been carved out by retreating glaciers at the end of the last ice age, ten thousand years ago. At five kilometres long and two hundred feet deep at its deepest point, Bedford Basin was the largest natural deep water harbour in Canada. The history of habitation in the area began with the Mik’maq people who had migrated into the area of what eventually became the Halifax Regional Municipality as the glaciers had retreated.

Explorers from Europe arrived in the 16th Century and fishermen from from France and England began to establish summer fishing camps in the area in the 17th Century. In 1749, an English fleet under the command of Lieutenant General Edward Cornwallis, bearing 1,100 colonists and their families had dropped anchor in Bedford Basin. Halifax quickly proved its worth as a naval base and played a key role in the British victory over the French in the French and Indian Wars and later in the American Revolution. Over the following two hundred years, Halifax would continue to attract maritime trade from all over the world and eventually grew into the largest city in eastern Canada, as well as one of Canada’s most important sea ports.

The little flotilla of Frank, Joe and Alice drifted to a stop in the middle of the basin. The buildings of downtown Darthmouth clustered close to the opposite shore. The morning sunlight caught in the window glass and left a long gold streak on the dark blue water of the harbour. The turgid waters of the basin stirred under the force of Masson and Victor’s propellers as they scooted out into the main shipping channel, leaving a swirl of blurbling white foam behind them.

As they approached Frank and Alice and their charge, Masson sounded his horn. The deep bass note echoed across the water with a loud _OOOOOOOOOO!_

Joe’s gaze shifted at the sound of Masson’s horn and he sounded his own in response. _AAAAOOOOOOOO!_

Masson felt the sound reverberate through his hull, making his rivets rattle. “Morning, Frank,” he said as he approached.

The harbour tug cast an eye up toward the toward the freighter. “Morning, Joe,” he said.

“Morning, Masson,” replied Frank, “morning, Victor.”

“Morning, Joe,” saiid Victor.

“Masson, Victor,” replied the big freighter, “its great to see you again, I hear Gladstone is in port.”

Masson gave the impression of a nod. “Yeah, we brought him in a couple of days ago. He’s still tied up at the container terminal.”

Victor, who had motored to around Joe’s other side, interjected. “He’s not supposed to go back out for another three or four days, but the Coasties showed up almost before Gladstone’s crew finished tying down the lines,” he said.

“Any idea why?” asked Joe.

“No, Joe,” said Masson, “but the rumour going around is that the Coast Guard is going to pull his safety certificate.”

Joe looked aghast. Revoking a ship’s safety certificate was the one of the worst thing that could things that could happen. If Gladstone’s safety rating was revoked, he couldn’t go to sea. If he couldn’t go to sea, he’d likely be sold. _Gladstone’s a young ship though_ , thought Joe, mostly to reassure himself, _he probably won’t be scrapped._ He paused, momentarily, unsettled by the thought, _no,_ he said to himself firmly, _Gladstone definitely won’t be scrapped_ , _but he might be sold to another shipping line_. Being sold was always a dicey proposition. Some shipping companies were were better than others, he reasoned, but you never knew what kind of weather you were sailing into.

There had been five other ships in Joe’s class when he had been built. He had had been third in order of construction. Joe’s sister, Agnes B Klein had been built in the opposite dry dock from Gladstone. Her ownership had changed hands twice before she had been completed. Her construction had been paused in the middle of her fitting out when her owners, Intermarine Transport Solutions had encountered financial difficulties and nearly sold her for scrap before she had even been launched. The delays had left Agnes with a proverbial chip on her shoulder, which had made her slow to trust her owners. Joe reckoned that it had been about a year since had seen her last. They had been tied up at the same pier in Mumbai together for several days and had spent the entire time catching up. Joe had always had a soft spot for Agnes. _You never can tell with company management_ , he thought. _They think about the bottom line, long before they think about the fleet, if they think about us at all._

Joe’s thoughts were interrupted as he felt Masson and Victor easing into him on either side. Frank and Alice cast off their lines and motored off, leaving a trail of white foam behind them. Masson and Victor’s deckhands took up the slack lines and the two harbour tugs were tied off to the big container ship. They revved their engines, their propellers thrashing the water into foam. They rocked gently in the long shallow swells that rolled down the length of Joe’s hull. The tips of his bronze propeller flashed in the sun and the spray thrown up into the air from his prop caught and refracted the sunlight, scattering a rainbow of colour around Joe’s stern.

Under the charge of the two tugs, Joe was guided into his berth at the Halifax Container Terminal. The cranes stood waiting on the dock, as Masson and Victor eased Joe into position. Their long, skeletal looking arms thrust out over the water, which swirled around the concrete piling as it was caught between the sheer cliff of Joe’s hull and the side of the dock. The air was filled with the sound of sloshing water, as if in a giant bathtub. The air was full of the smell of diesel fumes. Lines arced from Joe’s deck and landed on the dock, where tiny figures in bright orange safety vests and hard hats rushed to pick them up. Joe’s lines creaked slightly as his winches took up the slack, pulling him in tight to his berth. Tied up at the far end of the pier was a another container ship. He had a light grey hull and white superstructure. His deck was stacked from bow to stern with multicoloured shipping containers. A pair of eyes peered out from the bridge windows. Joe spied several figures in uniforms walking along the deck. The glint of gold braid stood out against the background of navy blue uniform jackets.

“Gladstone?” asked Joe. “How are you it’s been a long time.”

The other freighter stared for at Joe for a second as though he remembered him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite remember where. Then something clicked into place, because the other freighter sudden brightened. “Joe!” said Gladstone brightly, “how are you? Scrapper’s torch, its been awhile, hasn’t it.”,

Joe gave the impression of a shrug. “I’ve been worse,” he said. “I was laid up for awhile last year after I ran aground.” The previous September, Joe had been crossing the South China Sea, two days out of Manila bound for Hong Kong. It had been night time when the typhoon had struck unexpectedly. They had fallen behind schedule due to unforeseen delays. Captain Andover has taken a shortcut through the narrow, twisting passage that wound their way through and around the islands that made up the Philippine archipelago. It was a well known and well marked route, familiar to all the freighters that plied the South China Sea. Navigating the passage was tricky, particularly at night, but to an experienced captain, it would have been straight forward, but in the dark, during a category four typhoon, Joe had been driven on to an unmarked shoal, which had cut open a twenty foot hole in the bottom of his hull and had closed the channel for four days.

Once the typhoon had blow itself out, the divers had come to inspect the damage to the bottom of Joe’s hull and patch the hole. Joe had limped out of the channel under his own power and had been escorted by tugboats back to a dry dock in Manila for repairs, which had taken two months to complete. Sometimes, if he bent the right way in rough weather, he could feel spot where shipyard workers had welded him back together. He wondered if he would ever get used to that.

“So, what about you?” asked Joe, “the tugs told me that your schedule is all shot to hell. What happened?”

Gladstone didn’t say anything for a long time and Joe began to wonder if Gladstone hadn’t heard him, or perhaps was ignoring him. Joe had been on the verge of verbally prodding his friend, when the other container ship, when Gladstone finally spoke. His voice was quiet. “They found something,” he said after a long silence.

A sense of trepidation that Joe couldn’t explain suddenly ran through his plates. The phrase “they found something” was one that no ship worth its steel wanted to hear, because it meant that the steel from which the ship had been built was worthless.“What did they find?” he asked after several long seconds. Even as he asked the question, Joe wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know the answer.

“They found a crack,” replied Gladstone after several long seconds.

“Where?” asked Joe. His sense of foreboding increased.

“In my keel.”

 _Well, that explains a lot_ , Joe thought to himself. _No wonder the Coast Guard has been going over him with a fine tooth comb._

“I’m not really sure exactly when it happened,” said Gladstone, “but we had hit some heavy weather in the Indian Ocean about six weeks ago. I thought I could feel my keel plates grinding against each other, but I told myself I was just imagining things. I’ve been in bad weather before and it’s usually no big deal.” The container ship paused briefly before continuing. “That was until last week. My Second Officer was carrying out a routine inspection of my ballast tanks, when he found that the inboard bulkhead of my number four ballast tank had a crack in it. Captain Hamlin came down and personally inspected the crack himself himself. The Coasties were waiting on the dock with an inspection team when we tied up. They X-rayed me and discovered that the crack extends into my keel. They’re consulting with a naval architect. They think my design might be fundamentally flawed.”


	4. Chapter 4

Joe was silent for a long time, as he absorbed Gladstone’s information. A design flaw? he thought, poor Gladstone. When Gladstone had been built his designers had utilized a number of new construction techniques. They had claimed that they would be able build Gladstone faster and more efficiently with the new techniques they had developed, and that had proven to be true. Joe had been built using traditional shipbuilding methods. Joe’s keel had been laid at the same time as Gladstone’s, but Gladstone had been finished and floated out while the forward half of Joe’s hull was still mostly unfinished above the waterline.  
Gladstone’s designers had won a number of awards for the techniques they had developed to build him and plans had since been drawn up to build several more ships like him. Now, it seemed to Joe that those plans might have to put on hold until the extent of the damage to Gladstone’s keel could be ascertained and a way of mitigated the flaw in his design could developed. It seemed to to Joe that Gladstone wouldn’t be going to sea again anytime soon. It simply wasn’t safe for him, or his crew to do so. 

It took all night to unload Gladstone’s shipping containers. An intermodal train crawled like a steel snake underneath the cranes as the multicoloured shipping containers were deposit into the well cars. It looked odd to Joe to see Gladstone’s deck becoming increasingly empty as his cargo was sent shore and nothing was loaded aboard in its place. By sun rise the next morning Gladstone’s cargo hold was completely empty. He sat noticeably higher in the water and water had to be pumped into his ballast tanks so that he sat evenly in the water. 

Arnold’s alarm clock brought him back to consciousness with a start. He looked at the time. It was five AM. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and got out of bed. Trying to make as little noise as possible, so as not to wake his wife, he walked into the bathroom. He shut the door, clicked on the bathroom light and started to disrobe. He thrust his hand into the shower and turned on the water. It gushed out of the faucet with a loud rushing sound. He pushed back the curtain and stepped into the shower, feeling the hot water running down his chest and back and he felt himself gradually waking up.  
After his shower and a shave, Arnold when downstairs to the kitchen, where he put on the kettle and put some toast in the toaster. Arnold Dunwood was a tall, slightly red faced man with close cropped sandy blond hair and a goatee. He looked out on the world with hazel coloured eyes. Arnold was forty-two and had been born in Calgary, Alberta. He had been raised on a fifty thousand acre cattle farm in the shadow of the Canadian Rockies. He hadn’t seen the sea until he had turned nineteen. To the disappointment of his parents, who had hoped that he would take over the family farm one day, he had enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy the day after his nineteenth birthday. He had shipped out to Victoria, British Columbia six weeks later and and been inducted into the navy as a midshipman. Over the next ten years, he had risen through the ranks and eventually mustered out as a Chief Petty Officer, having advanced as a far as he felt that he could as an enlisted sailor.  
He had applied to and was accepted at the Canadian Merchant Marine Academy, where he had graduated with his Master’s papers and a license as a tugboat operator. It hadn’t taken him long after that to land a job with Citadel Marine. Arnold washed down his quick breakfast with a cup of coffee and walked out to his battered station wagon. He got in and put the key in the ignition. The engine coughed to life and he backed out of the driveway. The drive from the house that he shared with his wife and three children on the Northwest Arm, down to the parking lot at the foot of the company pier took twenty minutes. He pulled into the company parking lot, found a parking space and turned off his engine. He got out and walked across the parking lot to the two story building that housed the company offices. He pushed open the door and went inside.  
The ground floor consisted of a large open room. One end of the room was occupied by a collection of battered looking tables and chairs. A table along one wall sagged under the weight of several large coffee urns. People were milling around and talking quietly. A few were nursing cups of coffee. A TV hung from the ceiling, turned to the news with the sound turned down low. The end of the room was set up as an office. Several desks occupied the space and several battered filing cabinets stood in the corners and along the wall. A slightly neglected looking plant stood on the filing cabinet in the corner. One wall was composed mostly windows, which looked out on the company pier and the harbour beyond. Several of the tugs bobbed sleepily and their moorings.  
Arnold could see figures moving around on the dock and the foredeck of the closest tug, waking them up as the sun came up over the far side of the harbour. He turned from the scene outside toward the far wall at opposite end of the office space. There were a series of hooks in a verticals line next to the shabby looking door that led outside to the pier. The names of the all the tugs in the fleet were written above each of the hooks. A clipboard hung from each one, which also had the names of the tugs written on them. Arnold threaded his way through the mixture of desks and people to stop by the door. He ran his eye down the column of clipboards until he found Masson’s name third from the bottom.   
Arnold picked the clipboard from its hook and quickly flipped through the attached paperwork. He quickly ran his eye down the work order. He sighed when he was done reading. Poor Gladstone, he thought. He’s not going to like this. Arnold had been ordered to take Masson over to the Halifax Container Terminal and tow Gladstone over to the Coast Guard dry dock, where he was to undergo a complete inspection. They’re probably going to cut open his hull, thought Arnold. It would take several more days to cut open Gladstone’s hull and inspect the damage to his keel. Arnold reasoned that it would take at least several weeks to repair. I better get started, he thought.  
He pulled open the door leading from the company office to the dock. The smell of sea weed, salt water and diesel fuel hung in the air. His breath misted in front of him in the slight pre-dawn. The lights in Masson’s wheel house were on. From where he stood at the foot of the pier, he could see figures moving around inside, and guessed that it was his helmsman and his First Mate. Arnold walked down the pier past Frank on one side and Victor and Alice on the other. “Morning, Arnold,” said Frank as Arnold walked past him.  
“Morning Frank,” replied Arnold, with a nod. He kept walking almost always down to the end of the pier. As he approach Masson’s berth, his First Mate, Renee Bergeron stepped out of Masson’s wheel house. Renee was a tall, thin man with goatee and shoulder length black hair. He was dress against the early morning chill in a faded looking flannel jacket and an old pair of jeans.   
“Skipper,” said Masson with good natured sarcasm, “nice of you to finally show up”  
“Arnold,” said Renee in a slightly lilting Québécois accent, “Bonjoiur.” He eyed the clipboard in Arnold’s hand. “What are our orders for today?”  
Arnold handed the clipboard to his First Mate. “Read for yourself,” he said. “Our first job of the day is to take Gladstone over the government dry dock.”  
Renee murmured to himself as he read through the work order. “I don’t think Joe will like this,” he said.  
Arnold nodded. “No, he won’t,” he replied. “Gladstone is probably going to be beached for a couple of months.”  
Renee nodded. “He won’t like that.”  
“No,” replied Arnold. “He won’t.”

Half an hour later, after the departure preparations were completed, Masson pulled away from the dock, leaving a long trail of white foam and disturbed water behind him. The eastern horizon was painted with the hues of dawn. In the distance, the ferries were already scuttling back and forth across the harbour. The suspension bridge traced a dark line across the horizon just before the Narrows. The smokestacks of the Dartmouth power station thrust up into the sky like long fingers, their red and white warning lights winking in the pre-dawn darkness.  
Masson motored out into the main shipping channel, weaving his way through early morning traffic. Off to the left, as he entered the main shipping channel, the Halifax Peninsula jutted out into the harbour. Near the top of the hill overlooking the harbour, stood the Halifax clock tower. It was still bathed in the bright glare of its surrounding floodlights. They went off one by one as the sun crept up over the horizon.   
In Masson’s wheelhouse, helmsman Donny Jacbonsen spun the wheel and turned Masson’s bow away from the opposite shore and toward the Narrows. His eyes slid from the view out over Masson’s blunt bow to the radar screen mounted in the middle of the instrument panel in front of him. There were a pair of blips on the radar about a thousand meters behind them. It was Banscott and Victor sailing in formation. Victor was on his way to assist Masson in moving Gladstone. Banscott had been assigned to the Irving Shipyard to assist with the floating out of a new semi-submersible deep ocean research platform.   
It took Masson twenty minutes to traverse the Narrows into Bedford Basin. There were a few freighters riding at anchor, waiting for a berth, but otherwise the inner harbour appeared to be mostly quiet. Masson motored down the length Bedford Basin, with Victor following in his wake. On the wheelhouse radar screen, Arnold, Renee and Donny watched the blip was Banscott break away from Victor and angle off across the basin toward the Irving Shipyard. Off on the left, the lights of the intermodal terminal glowed in the darkness along the shores of Fairview Cove. The big cranes were silhouetted in the lights of the yard behind them, casting strange shadows out over the water. The berth that Joe had occupied was filled by another ship that Masson and Victor didn’t recognize. Joe had unloaded the cargo that he had come in with, been reloaded and gone back to sea in the middle of the night.  
Gladstone’s deck was empty. Captain Rigdewood had pumped water into Gladstone’s ballast tanks, with the exception of ballast tank #3, which was the one with the crack in it., but the big cargo ship was still riding high in the water.Gladstone was held on position by a pair of bow and stern lines. They were slightly slack. A couple of feet of the tip of one of his bronze propeller blades protruded out of the water. Small waves lapped sluggishly against the sheer cliff of his slate grey hull and around the bulb of his bow, which protruded outward six feet from his forehead, where the bottom of Gladstone’s bow came into contact with his keel plates.  
“Morning, Gladstone,” said Masson.  
The container ship looked down at the harbour tug. “Oh, morning Masson,” he said. “I suppose you’ve come to tow me to over to the government dry dock?”  
Masson gave the impression of a nod and from where he was standing in Masson’s wheelhouse, Arnold got the impression that Gladstone seemed to have adopted a thousand yard stare. “Is he going to be OK?” asked Arnold.  
One of Masson’s large square eyes turned inward to look at Arnold. “I think so,” the tugboat replied, “eventually.” The word hung in the air with loaded significance. Masson didn’t have to explain to to Arnold, or anyone else that Gladstone’s self-worth was tied to his ability to go to sea. It was, after all, what he had been built for. If he couldn’t, then what purpose did he serve? Arnold’s musings were interrupted by the sound of Victor’s voice cutting into his thoughts.  
“Hey, Masson,” he said, “are we going to get on with the job, or are we just going to sit here burning fuel?”


	5. Chapter 5

Masson seemed to shake himself at the sound of Victor’s voice. He nosed his blunt bow closer to Gladstone’s hull. “It’s going to be OK, Gladstone,” he said. His heavy rubber bumpers pressed into the side of the of the big container ship.   
Victor cut in again. “Yeah, the engineers will get you patched up and back to sea in no time.”  
Gladstone didn’t look convinced.  
The radio chattered in Masson’s wheelhouse. “Let go bow and stern lines.” On Gladstone’s other side, the dock workers untied the lines and they were winched back on board. At the same time lines snaked over board and landed in a coil on the fore decks of the two tugboats. Two of Masson’s deck hands, Hank Bronson and Joe Lasker, ran forward and wrestled the thick hawser into position around Masson’s bow capstan.  
In Masson’s wheelhouse, Renee was watching the activity on Victor’s foredeck through a pair of binoculars as two Victor’s deck hands tied off the heavy line to Victor’s bow capstan. Renee turned and gave Arnold a thumbs up. Arnold picked the radiophone mounted in the instrument panel in front of him and put it to his ear. He keyed the push-to-talk button. “Hey, Bob,” he said, “are you and Victor, ready over there on your end?”  
“Roger that,” said Bob in Arnold’s ear, “we’re ready to move when you are.”  
“Copy that,” replied Arnold. “We’re moving now.” He turned his attention to Donny. “Rudder amidship, engines to half astern.” As Donny put the wheel over, bring Masson’s rudder back to centre, his engine telegraph dinged as the tugboat’s engine went into reverse. The deck plates thrummed and the water under Masson’s stern turned to foam as his big diesel engine applied its ten thousand horse power to his single bronze propeller. Out of Masson’s wheelhouse windows, open water appeared between the tug and the container ship as he backed away from Gladstone. The heavy hawser tying Masson to Gladstone’s bow creaked audibly as Masson reached the end of the line, and he jerked noticeably as the line tightened. Arnold issued a string of orders and Gladstone’s bow swung away from the dock in a wide arc, leaving a triangle of turbulent, turgid water in its wake.   
At Gladstone’s stern, Victor thrust his bow into Gladstone’s transom and revved his engine, pushing him out into the harbour and away from the dock. The little flotilla continued to motor out in the harbour, toward the main shipping channel. It took an hour to tow Gladstone across the wide expanse of Bedford Basin to the government dry dock on the other side of the harbour in Dartmouth. By the time they reached the government dry dock at the Canadian Coast Guard station, the sun was up and the scudding clouds of the predawn had moved off to the west, leaving a bright blue sky in their wake. The sun shone like a gold coin in the clear morning sky.  
The gates of the dry dock stood open and waiting for Gladstone. The two tugboats and the container ship drifted to a stop a few hundred meters shy of the open dry dock. They cast off their lines, which were winched back on board. They withdrew, snake like back through the scuppers in Gladstone’s hull and disappeared.  
In Masson’s wheelhouse Arnold issued a string of orders and Masson motored around to Gladstone’s starboard side, then spun in his own length so that his blunt bow was facing the sheer cliff of Gladstone’s hull. Masson feathered his engine and carefully edged forward until his foc’sel gently pressed itself into Gladstone’s hull. Working from opposite sides at Gladstone’s bow and stern, Masson and Victor gently turned him around within his own length so that his stern was pointing toward the flooded dry dock and his bow was pointing outward into the harbour. Together they pushed Gladstone into the waiting dry dock.

On the other side of the harbour, Banscott bobbed on the choppy water of the harbour. Waves lapped at breakwater of the Irving Shipyard. The shipyard was dominated by it four large assembly halls, each of which was eight hundred feet long and a hundred and fifty feet tall. Cranes of various sizes hovered over the half built ships that were tied up in the shipyard. A profusion of buildings, containing offices, drafting rooms and secondary workshops, surrounded the large assembly halls. The large doors to Assembly Hall #4 yawned open and from within its depths, Banscott’s captain, Chester Goodwin, could see a pair of eyes peering out from the bridge of a half built bulk freighter.   
At the far end of the shipyard, towering above even the tallest crane, a large platform floated by itself. It covered an area equivalent to several baseball diamonds. It’s large main deck was a crowded jumble of buildings containing offices, laboratories, workshops and repair facilities. Cranes stuck out from the platform from various locations and angles. A tall tower bristled with sensors and communications antennas. Radar domes sprouted like mushrooms from the tops of the platform’s control centre. The platform’s substructure, which was half visible above the waterline and partly obscured but the surrounding buildings was painted and bright red. The platform’s name was clearly visible, stencilled in white lettering in one corner of the platform: Allan Brooks.   
Allan was a semi-submersible deep ocean research platform. He had been built to allow marine biologists and oceanographers to study on going changes to marine ecosystems as a result of outside stimuli.   
In Bascott’s wheelhouse, the radiophone warbled and Chester picked up the handset. “Go ahead,” he said. Captain Chester Goodwin was heavy set man with a florid complex and a bald spot. A gold wedding band glinted on his right hand. Chester had grown up an farm on the north shore of Nova Scotia, within sight of the Bay of Funday. The sea was in his blood. His father, his grandfather and two of his uncles had been fishermen. He had learned to handle a tiller before learning how to drive. He had first gone to sea when he had been sixteen and had never looked back. A position on a lobster boat had brought him to Halifax in his mid twenties, but the position hadn’t panned out. He had taken a temporary job as a dock worker with Citadel Marine, while he had been looking for a permanent posting with the local fishing fleet, had become permanent when of Frank’s deck hands had injured himself on the job and had been forced to retire.  
Chester had never been any great shakes at school, but over the next twenty years, he had worked his way up the company ranks and had eventually earned his Master’s certificate, even though it had taken him three tries to do it.  
“What do you think they’re waiting for in there?” asked Banscott. Banscott was a hundred and twenty feet long and weighed eight thousand tons. Like Chester, Banscott was a local kid. And he was very much a kid. Banscott was only ten years old. He had been built in this very shipyard by Citadel Marine and had been outfitted with all the latest navigational technology. Where the older tugs had propellers, Banscott and his twin brother Banstar had been designed from the keel up with the latest propulsion technology, in a pair of azipod thrusters, which rotated in a full three hundred and sixty degrees. This, in conjunction with a satellite guided station keeping system, allowed Banscott to maintain his position with a level of accuracy measured in millimetres.  
“I have no fucking idea,” replied Chester. He eyed the clock mounted over the middle of Banscott’s wheelhouse windows. It was 08:30. “Must be the damn Coasties again,” he said. Chester had never really much time for the Coast Guard. It was an attitude he had inherited from his father. Chester eyed the radiophone handset mounted in Banscott’s instrument panel. The tugboat seemed to know what he what thinking.  
“Maybe, I should I talk to them,” said Banscott..  
“And why would that be?” replied Chester.  
Banscott paused before answering, “well,” he said, trying not to put too fine a point on it, “you’re you.” It was hard to get Chester good and riled, but he prided himself on keeping his crew on schedule and they were definitely in danger of falling behind. The work order had called for them two research platform, to the outer marker where Frank was supposed to be waiting for them, to tow Allan to his final location.   
After several minutes of consideration, Chester assented. “All right, fine,” he said, “go ahead and talk to them.” He shrugged. “They probably don’t want to talk to me.” The last time Chester had had dealings with the Coast Guard, had been last year during Banscott’s annual safety inspection. Banscott has passed, but Chester had been sorely tempted to hit the inspector. Chester had always had a short fuse. It was a trait he had inherited from his father, who had tolerated no fools on his fishing boat.   
Banscott gave the impression of a nod. “Fair enough,” the tugboat replied. He keyed his radio. “Irving Yard Master,” he said, “this is MV Banscott, ship actual. We are hold position at the entrance to the yard, please advise on delay, over.”  
The radio crackled loudly with static. As Banscott, Chester, his First Mate and helmsman waited for the yard master to reply. After what seemed like a long silence that was filled only by the hiss of radio static, a voice spoke. “MV Banscott, ship actual, this please advise, we are having technical difficulties with Alan’s azipods. Please hold your position while we investigate the problem.”


	6. Chapter 6

It took a full hour for the shipyard workers to sort out the problem with Alan’s azipods. Eventually, Banscott nosed slowly past the breakwater and pointed himself toward the turned basin, where the large platform sat waiting. Alan towered over the tug boat. His ballast tanks were empty, which seemed to accentuate his height. He cast a long shadow, turning the turgid water of of the turning basin a dark, murky brown. A stray breeze ruffled the surface of the water into small white caps, which appeared dull and grey in Alan’s shadow.  
As Banscott approached the base of the towering platform, a line snaked down over Alan’s side. He drifted to a stop at Alan’s base. He spun in his own length and the line fell in to a coil on his aft deck. Banscott’s deck hands took hold of the heavy hawser and wrestled it through the notch in the capstan welded to Banscott’s after deck, then folded it back on itself, wrapping it securely around the capstan.   
Chester sighed. “About fuckin’ time,” he said. As he spoke, he could feel the shiver in the deck plates intensify as Banscott’s engines throbbed with increasing intensity. Smoke coiled upward from the top of his twin triangular funnels, to be carried away as scraps on the breeze. On deck, the heavy tow cable creaked as the tugboat’s forward motion straightened out the line, which rose dripping out of the water. He drew it straight and then taught. Banscott grunted as he pulled big platform out of the shipyard’s turning basin. He felt the strain in his keel plates. The sluggish water around Alan’s base churned into white foam as his azipods slowly propelled him forward. Banscott felt the strain on his keel plates ease slightly as the tow cable slackened slightly.   
It took another hour to tow Alan out past the shipyard breakwater, most of which was spent negotiating the turn from the turning basin in to the main channel which led out of the shipyard and into the harbour. The turning basin was located at right angle to the breakwater and the channel was narrow. As a result of Alan’s large size, coupled with tricky navigation, towing him out of the shipyard had proved to be more challenging than Chester had expected. He reflected that they probably would have fallen behind schedule, even without the additional delay.  
Banscott and Alan drifted slowly into the middle of Bedford Basin. The inner harbour was mostly quite. The government pilot boat motored by on the far side of the basin, the drone of its engine echoing off of the buildings along the Dartmouth waterfront and leaving a long V white foam trailing behind it as it plowed by on some errand of its own. By the time Banscott and Alan reached the outer entrance to the harbour, Frank was sitting fifty meters from the marker buoy looking grumpy.  
“Well, look who finally decided to haul his ass off the keel blocks and show,” said the salvage tug.  
“Sorry, Frank,” replied Banscott, “we were held up,” and he explained how one of Alan’s azipods had malfunctioned, which had necessitated an hour delay, while the problem was inventories and fixed.  
Frank didn’t look as if he believed the harbour tug. “You threw off my schedule, you know,” he said pointedly.  
Banscott had the good grace to look shamefaced. “Sorry, Frank,” he said.   
Frank harrumphed in irritation. “Well, you’re here now,” he said. “That’s what matters.”   
In Banscott’s wheel house got on the radio and issued a rapid succession of orders. A hatch banged open and the four deckhands rushed out on to Banscott’s after deck. They unwrapped the heavy tow line from around his stern capstan and it slid over the side and into the water with a splash. It drifted slackly In the water and Banscott pulsed his azipods, motoring slowly away from the end of the tow line drifted I the water. When he was sure that the heavy line wasn’t going to foul his azipods, Banscott increase his rate of speed and motored off, leaving a thin trail of grey smoke from his twin funnels and a long trail of white foam from his azipods in his wake.  
Frank turned in a tight circle as Banscott receded into the distance. One of his deckhands thrust a long boathook into the water, snagging the waterlogged line and pulling it aboard dripping. They looped it around his stern capstan and foam blurbed out from under his fantail as his bronze propeller thrashed at the water. Frank’s engine rumbled and smoke poured from his two funnels. The water curled into white foam around his bow, waves rolled down his hull and a long V rippled across the surface of the ocean in his wake. The tow line, which had lain slack and drifted listlessly in the water, rose out of the water in a long, gentle arc. It straightened out, stretching slightly as Frank pulled on the thick tow cable taught. He felt the strain in his keel plates as they took Alan’s weight. The water frothed around his base as he propelled himself slowly forward with his azipods.  
Alan’s location was well out to sea and took Frank a couple of hours to tow him out to the designated spot on the map. The coast receded and shrank, until it was nothing more than a thin, grey line well astern of Frank. By the time they arrived, the sun was well above the horizon and left a trail of sparkling white diamonds on the surface of the gently tossing ocean. The breeze ruffled the deep, blue water into wavelets and scudding, puffy white clouds dotted the wide blue bowl of the sky, which ran down to the horizon and disappear into the sea.

The sun was setting by the time Frank was finished for the day. His deckhand unwrapped the heavy tow cable from around his stern capstan cast and cast it overboard. It fell into the water with a splash and Frank motored away from the sheer cliff of the bulk freighter he had been escorting out of the harbour. He bobbed slightly on the long Atlantic swells. Clouds hovered on the horizon, backlit by the setting sun which coloured the sky a deep crimson. A long wake of turbulent water trailed behind Frank as he steamed back into the harbour, weaving his way among the fishing boats and the harbour ferries as they scuttled back and forth between Halifax and Dartmouth.   
By the time Frank tied up at the company dock, Masson, Victor, Banstar and Banscott were motoring in in a line behind him. They were silhouetted by the setting sun. He could hear them talking to each other, laughing and trading jokes. In Frank’s wheelhouse, Danny and Renee were conferring quietly, their heads bent over a mess of navigational charts at the back of Frank’s wheelhouse. The clouds were moving in, blocking out the light of the setting sun. Everything was a mix of shadows and multi-coloured light. The brightly polished engine telegraph dinged as it rang ENGINE STOP and then dinged again as the engine room telegraph answered. The distant rumble of Frank’s engine died and the plume of smoke from his two funnels was shredded by the breeze. Danny scribbled some final notes in Frank’s log, then walked out onto to the wing of Frank’s wheelhouse. He made his way down the gangway, on the deck and from there across the gangplank to the dock. 

It took less than ten minutes for Danny to walk from where Frank had been tied up to walk to the parking lot at the end of the company dock. It was starting to rain. Fat drops drummed on the roof of his car as he turned the key in the ignition and backed out of his parking space. In his rear view mirror, Danny could see the lights glowing through the windows in Frank’s wheelhouse. They made his eyes shine. The falling rain caught the concentrated beams of light shining from the tugboat’s eyes. It looked like scintillating diamonds in falling the light. He joined the flow of cars leaving the parking lot and turned onto Lower Water Street. From there he drove three blocks where turned left at the traffic lights where Lower Water Street ran into Sackville Street.   
Caught in the flow of rush hour traffic, Danny’s car slowly climbed up and around Citadel Hill, where the battlements of the Halifax Citadel squatted on top of the hill that was Halifax’ most prominent geographical feature. In the rain and the quickly falling darkness, in seemed to glower down at the brightly lit buildings along the waterfront. Danny turned out of the flow of cars crawling uphill from the waterfront at the intersection of Sackville and Robie. He turned onto Robie Street and drove north for several blocks past the Museum of Natural History and the Halifax Common, until he saw the sign for Quinpool Road. He turned off Robie onto on to Quinpool and after a couple of minutes turned out of the flow of traffic again, this time on to a narrow side street. He drove slowly down the street until he got to a house roughly half way down the narrow street and pulled into the driveway next to a second hand Mazda. Danny turned off the engine and go out. The lights of three story townhouse glowed brightly in the darkness. Hunched over again the rain, Danny walked up the the steps the front door and put his key in the lock. The door knob rattled in Danny’s hand as he turned it and from somewhere inside the house, he heard the deep booming bark of a dog.  
Danny opened the front door and was almost knocked flat by a hundred pounds of happily barking Labrador retriever, as Marlin bounded down the hall. He jumped up and down in excitement as Danny came in the door. “Woah!” he said, “down! Down Marlin!” Danny grabbed Marlin by the collar and wrestled him to the floor. “Good boy,” he said. Marlin’s tail wagged happily back and forth at the compliment. “Marlin, sit,” he said. Marlin sat, his tail still thudding happily against the hardwood floor. Danny shrugged his coat which was wet from the rain and hung it up on one of the brass coat hooks next to the front door. Water dripped steadily onto the carpet as Danny dropped his car keys onto the small table with a clatter. He thrust a hand into the ceramic jar that sat on the table next to the little dish that held his wife’s car keys and some loose change. When Danny withdrew his hand, a large dog biscuit was clutched in his fingers.   
Marlin shifted on his haunches and licked his chops and Danny held the coveted dog biscuit just out of reach. Marlin’s nose twitched rapidly. Danny placed the dog biscuit on the end of Marlin’s muzzle.   
“Stay,” he said.  
Marlin was very, very still. The tip of his tail twitched slightly.  
Danny chuckled. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?” he asked. Marlin wasn’t looking at his owner. His eyes were completely fixated on the biscuit balanced on the end of his nose. Danny let a couple of minutes slide by. To Marlin, they seemed like several eternities. “OK,” said Danny at last. No sooner had he uttered the second syllable, than a long pink tongue flicked out, scooped up the dog biscuit and pulled into his mouth where it disappeared. Marlin paused momentarily to lick up the few stray crumbs that had fallen to the floor. Then he turned his tail on his owner and trotted into the living room, where he flopped down on his dog bed with a sigh.  
Danny followed Marlin down the hall. He kept going straight, past the living room and into the kitchen. His wife, Abby, was standing at the stove stirring something. She stopped what she was doing at the sound of Danny pushing open the kitchen door.   
“Hi,”she said as Danny crossed the kitchen. His footsteps thudded in the title floor. He had forgotten to remove his steel toed boots. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” asked Abby pointedly, staring at the wet boot prints Danny had tracked across the previously clean kitchen floor.  
Danny turned. “Huh,” he said in slight confusion, then he saw the line of muddy tracks he had left from the front door into the kitchen. “Oh, sorry.” Danny had forgotten to take his boots off again. He bent over and unknotted his laces, then balancing first on one foot, then the other, pulled off his work boots. He picked them up and padded back to the front hall, where he deposited them on the rubber mat by the door. He was about to turn to walk back to the kitchen when he heard the sound of stocking feet on the stairs. He turned as an eight year old boy ran down the stairs.  
Upon catching sight of his father, Mark Johnson ran into his father’s arms, almost knocking him over. “Hi, Dad,” he said excitedly. He was dressed in his favourite pair of Star Wars pyjamas and carrying a plastic lightsaber. The blue plastic blade clacked loudly against the spindles as Mark ran downstairs into his father’s arms.  
“Hi, sport,” replied Danny, giving his son a hug. He was about to ask, “how was school?” but the words died before he could say anything. Mark’s left eye was an ugly purple bruise. Danny stopped and examined his son’s face closely. “What happened to your eye?” he asked.  
Mark was silent for a couple of seconds, as if wondering if he could get away only part of the truth. Finally he said, “I got in a fight.”  
“With who?” asked Danny, but he thought he already knew the answer. Mark was autistic and had an obsessive interest anything to do with space. Naturally, he was also an obsessive science fiction fan. Danny could guess who his son had gotten into a fight with and sighed inwardly. “It was Joey Lutz wasn’t it?”  
Mark nodded.   
“Does your Mom know about that you had a fight?”  
Mark nodded again.  
Danny sighed again. “So what happened?”   
Mark sat down on the stairs, shoulders slumped. He reached into his pocket and produced a broken pair of glasses. “Joey called me a four-eyed spastic dweeb.” He cradled has broken glasses in his hands and looked as if he wanted to cry and Danny put a hand on his shoulder. Mark was in the second grade. Joey Lutz was in the fourth. This wasn’t the first time that Joey Lutz had singled out Mark for being different. It had happened twice the last three months. Joey had taken his lunch money and then had tried trip him on the playground.  
“Have you told your teacher?” asked Danny.  
“Yeah,” replied Mark. “I told Mrs. Fisk and Mrs. Milder and I think he’s going to get a detention, but….” Mark’s voice trailed off.  
Danny nodded. It wasn’t the first time Joey had been given a detention for picking on other kids, but never seemed have the desired effect. Not for the first time, Danny had wondered what it would take for Joey to leave Mark alone. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening, followed by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. He turned saw and saw a willowy looking twelve year old girl coming down the stairs.  
“Oh hi Dad,” she started to say, but she stopped speaking before she could say anything. She had noticed Mark sitting on the stairs, cradling his broken glasses. She sat down on the stairs, just above Danny and Mark. “Did he get in a fight again?” She asked.  
“Yeah,” replied her father quietly.  
“Joey Lutz again?” she asked.  
Mark nodded silently.   
Danny shifted over to make room between himself and Mark. He turned to look at his daughter. “Penny, why don’t you check with your Mom and see if dinner is ready, OK?”  
Penny nodded and tiptoed gingerly down the stairs between her father and her brother. She reached the bottom of the stairs, turned the corner and traipsed casually down the hall.They heard the door to the kitchen opening and minute or two of muffled conversation. Then Penny came back out into the hall and back to the the bottom of the stairs. “Mom says that dinner is almost ready and that you can go and sit down,” she said.


	7. Chapter 7

Danny and Mark got up followed Penny back down the hall and into the kitchen. The kitchen was brightly lit and full of the smells of hot, home cooked food. Abby opened the oven and a wave of heat wafted out, along with the smell of roast chicken.

“That smells great, Mom,”said Penny brightly.

“Thanks, honey,” said Abby. “Why don’t you go ahead and pour drinks for you and your brother, OK?”

“OK, Mom,” replied Penny. She walked over to the fridge, pulled the door open and took out the pitcher of milk. She poured two glasses and set them on the table.

While Abby cut pieces of roast chicken and put them on a large serving platter, Danny rummaged through the kitchens cupboards looking for serving bowls. He eventually found some and began spooning out mashed potatoes and carrots. He put the two bowls full of steaming, hot vegetables on the table and took out two wine glasses. He pulled open the fridge, produced a bottle of wine and poured some into the two glasses, then them on the table opposite the two glasses of milk that Penny had poured earlier.

Everyone sat down. Abby picked up the platter of roast chicken and stabbed at several pieces, depositing them onto her plate. She passed the platter to Danny, who took it, heaped several pieces of chicken onto his plate next to a pile of mashed potatoes and carrots. He passed the remaining roast chicken to Penny, who took some and passed it to Mark. He placed two small pieces of chicken on his plate next a few carrots and a small spoonful of mashed potatoes.

“You need to eat more than that, buddy,” said Danny gently.

Mark shook his head. “I’m not hungry,” he said.

Danny and Abby exchanged looks. They didn’t need to say anything to tell that they were both thinking the same think.

“Well, OK,” replied Abby after a minute or two, “but there’s more if you change your mind, OK?”

Mark nodded. “OK,” he said quietly, swallowing a mouthful of chicken.

Dinner was eaten in silence. The only sound was the clatter of knives and forks and the chink of glasses on the granite table top. Penny tried a couple of times to break the spell, but nobody was interested and she eventually fell silent. Danny and Abby kept exchanging looks with each other across the table. Both of them were thinking the same thing. Mark was having difficulties with bullies and they were unsure what to do.

After dinner, Penny and Mark went back upstairs. Mark took a piece of blueberry pie and a glass of milk upstairs to watch _Star War:The Clone Wars._ His parents had gotten him a Disney+ subscription for Christmas and _Clone Wars_ was his favourite show. On his computer screen, lightsabers twirled and flashed as Anakin, Obi-wan and Ashoka battled their way across the galaxy to save the Galactic Republic. Danny knocked on Mark’s bedroom door. “You mind if I come in?” he asked.

Mark paused his episode and nodded. Obi-wan froze in the middle of parrying a backhanded blow from Count Dooku. Danny walked into the room and sat down on Mark’s bed. The mattress springs creaked slightly under his weight. “You were pretty quiet during dinner,” he said, “even for you.” Danny paused, as if waiting for Mark to say something. When nothing was forthcoming, Danny said “do you want to talk about it?”

Mark was silent for a second or two, as he bit his lip. Danny waited patiently for his son to say something. “Joey doesn’t like me very much,” said Mark quietly about a minute of silence. Danny gently folded his son into his arms and held him tightly for what seemed like a long time. Mark had always liked to be held like this and often slept with a weighted blanket.

“It’s OK for people to be different,” replied Danny, “and sometimes being different means that we don’t always agree. That’s OK to,” he continued, “but just you and Joey are different, doesn’t mean that it’s OK for the two of you to fight.” He let go of Mark and took his broken glasses. The left arm was bent and one of the lenses was heavily scratched. He placed them on Mark’s night stand, next to his Artoo alarm clock. He suddenly remembered that he had an off day tomorrow, and that it was Saturday. “How about I take you downtown tomorrow and you can pick out a new pair of glasses, OK?”

Mark nodded. “OK, Dad.”

The next day dawned bright and clear. Danny took Mark out to breakfast at McDonalds. Danny ordered hot cakes, sausages, a hash brown and a coffee. Mark ordered an Egg McMuffin and orange juice. After breakfast, Danny and Mark walked down the street to the optometrist. Danny pushed open the door and they stepped inside. The shop smelled slightly musty. Everything looked slightly dated and shabby. Eye glass frames rested on well worn styrofoam heads. Others hung on clear plastic racks that lined the walls. Faded posters of models sporting designer glasses hung in chipped black frames on the walls between the display racks. Here and there gold and silver eye glass frames glinted under the pale blue glow of LEDs.

Danny walked over to the long rectangular counter that filled the middle of the room. A slightly battered looking bell sat on the counter next to the debit machine. Danny brought his palm down on the bell’s button and pressed with a loud _ding!_ It filled the shop and Danny heard the rustle of movement from somewhere in the back of the shop. A door opened and a heavy set older woman came out.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Danny took Mark by the shoulder and guided him around the long rectangular counter to the other side of the store. Mark almost walked into a rotating display of women’s reading glasses, nearly knocking it over. “Yes,” he said, “my son broke his glasses. They need to be replaced.”

The woman nodded. “Do you have his prescription?” Danny nodded and thrust a hand into his pocket for his wallet. He opened it, an extracted a folded piece of paper and handed it to her. She took it from him and unfolded it. She still for several seconds, reading silently, then she handed Mark’s prescription back to Danny. “These‘ll have to be custom ground,” she said after a long moment. “That’ll take a couple of weeks. Does he have another pair of glasses he can wear in the meantime?”

Danny shook his head. “No,” he said.

The woman frowned slightly and after a second or two she took Mark’s glasses. “Let me see what I can do,” she said. She disappeared back through the door that she had initially come out of and Danny and Mark heard a minute or two of muffled conversation. She returned back into the store and said, “please wait a moment while the technician fixes your glasses.”

Danny nodded. “OK, thanks,” he said. He guided Mark to a slightly wobbly metal chair. Mark sat down and they both waited. Another ten minutes went by. The optometrist appeared again and handed Mark his glasses back. He took them and put them back on.

“Our technician has managed to straighten the arm somewhat,” she said, “but as this design has been discontinued, I’m afraid that’s all we can do.”

Danny nodded again. “I understand,” he said. He turned to Mark and nodded at several racks of children’s frames on the other side of the store. “Why don’t you go a pick out a couple that you like and we’ll try them on, OK?”

Mark nodded. He got up out of the wobbly metal chair and walked around the the end of the long rectangular counter toward the display of children’s eye glass frames. Danny followed behind him. Together they spent several minutes surveying the display of brightly coloured eye glass frames. “Do you see any that you like?” asked Danny.

Mark nodded and took down a pair of dark blue metallic frames and put them on. “I really like these ones, Dad,” he said.

Danny nodded. He thought they suited Mark. “OK,” said Danny, taking the frames from Mark and looking at the price tag. They were $350.00. He put them on top of the glass display case. “Do you see any others?”

Mark nodded again and pulled down a pair of round frames with a faux tortoise shell patten and put them on. “How about these, Dad?” he asked.

Danny thought for a second before shaking his head. “I don’t think those really suit you,” he said at last. He took them from Mark and put them back on the display rack. He scanned the display again and selected a pair of rimless frames and settled them on Mark’s nose, but they were slightly too small and didn’t really fit properly.

Mark put his broken glasses back on and studied the display again. “What about those ones, Dad?” he asked. He pointed to a pair of frames in the middle of the top row. Danny followed Mark’s pointing finger. The frames that Mark had spotted were blue and white and a familiar looking cylindrical droid on the arms. Danny chuckled to himself. Somehow, Danny felt as though he shouldn’t be surprised that Mark would picked out a pair of Star Wars eyeglasses. Mark reached for them, but they were just slightly out of his grasp. Danny took them off of the display rack and handed them to Mark. He examined them closely, turning them over in his hands.

“Do you want to try them on?” asked Danny.

Mark nodded and took off his broken glasses and handed them to his father. Danny took them and held them as Mark put on the frames. He turned toward the small round mirror on the top the glass display case and looked at himself. Mark squinted, trying to see what he looked like, but his eyesight was very bad and making out his reflection in the small mirror was difficult. Danny gently turned Mark around to face him. The blue and white Artoo eyeglass frames were rectangular in shape. Danny thought they looked good on Mark. “Do you like those?” asked Danny. It was a largely rhetorical question. Danny knew what the answer would probably be.

Mark nodded.“Can we get these ones, Dad?” he asked.

Danny chuckled. “OK,” he said. He took the frames that Mark had picked out and handed his broken glasses back to him. “We’ll take these ones,” he said to the optometrist. She took them and put them down behind the counter. She opened pulled open and drawer and produced a matching blue and white eye glass case.

“OK,” she said. “Can I see his prescription again?” Danny pulled out his wallet and handed her Mark’s prescription a second time. She pulled open another drawer and took out a pad of blank prescriptions. She quickly scribbled down Mark’s prescription and handed it back to Danny, who pocketed it once more. She studied it for several minutes, frowning thoughtfully. “His prescription is extremely strong,” she said eventually.

Danny nodded. “Yeah,” he replied. “Mark is extremely farsighted.”

The optometrist eyed the thick lenses in Mark’s glasses and nodded. “I’d like to cut the lenses for his new glasses out of a larger diameter lens,” she said. “It’ll reduce the thickness of his lenses without compromising their refractive properties.”

Danny nodded in understanding. “How long will it take before they’re ready,” he asked.

She thought for a moment or two, mentally calculating how long it would take have the lenses specially ground and polished. “It will probably take four to six weeks,” she replied at last, “and it will be more expensive. We don’t do this sort of work here. We’ll have to order the lenses, then have them sent out and special cut and polished.”

Danny nodded again. “OK,” he said, “we’ll pick them up when they’re ready.”

The optometrist nodded and produced a another small pad of paper from the same drawer as the first. “Can I get your name please?”she asked.

“Johnson,” replied Danny. She scribbled down the name and stuck it to the top of the blue and white glass case. She walked over the computer and booted it up. The screen glowed to life and she logged in, opening a couple of windows. “I need you to confirm your name and contact information,” she said. Danny rattled off the necessary details and the air was filled with the clicking of computer keys as she typed in his information, along with Mark’s prescription information. After a second or two a printer whirred and the optometrist bent down and reached under the counter. She straightened up with two pieces of paper in her hand. She pulled them apart and one of them to Danny.

“This is the invoice confirming your order,” she said, “and this is the store’s copy.” She took it and put it in a large clear plastic bag, along with Mark’s frames. “You can pay for them when you pick them up.”

Danny nodded and took out his wallet again. He folded up the invoice and put it in his wallet, which he put back in his pocket.

“Someone will call you in about six weeks,” said the optometrist.

“OK,” replied Danny. He took Mark’s hand in his and together, they left the store.


	8. Chapter 8

Rain spattered on the roof of Frank’s wheelhouse. The iron grey water of the harbour was dimpled with rain drops. The wheelhouse was filled with the staccato drumming of rain on the roof and windows was like the sound of thousands of impatient fingers. A thick blanket of fog lay over the harbour. The ferries scuttling back and forth between Halifax and Dartmouth were dim, hulking shapes in the mist. The out going tide flowed sluggishly around the piers of the Angus L McDonald Bridge, leaving lazy whirlpools in its wake. The existence of the bridge was betrayed only by its winking red and white marker lights. The bridge itself was only barely visible in the fog.  
OOOOOOOOOOOOO! The deep baritone voice of a foghorn cut through the thick grey wall surrounding them. Frank’s eyes flicked into existence and went sliding back and forth across the wheelhouse windows.   
“Where is he?” asked Frank.   
Danny shook his head and looked at radar. It was worse than useless. The screen was hopelessly cluttered by false radar echoes from the fog. He walked to the window and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. He scanned the swirling grey mist.  
“Maybe we should get on the horn,” suggested Randy.  
Danny nodded. “Yeah, maybe,” he said.   
Frank clicked on his radio with a squelch of static, which made everyone flinch slightly. “This is Marine Franklin, Frank Actual, broadcasting on channel 164, we are holding position at the outer marker. Deep Water Ranger, please respond.”  
There was silence in Frank’s wheelhouse as he finished broadcasting his message. The only sounds were the steady drumming of the rain of Frank’s roof and the hiss of static coming out of his radio. They waited for a minute or two for a response.   
When nothing happened Randy said, “Frank, try again.”  
Frank repeated his message word for word.   
Again they waited, and there was silence, save for the soft hiss from the radio speaker. Danny and Randy exchanged looks Danny looked at the clock mounted on the bulkhead over Frank’s eyes, which were sliding back and forth from one window to the next, peering through the thick fog.  
Randy was peering at the radar screen, hoping to catch the Deep Water Ranger on radar amid all the false returns generated by the bad weather. The radar band swept endlessly around in a circle, constantly painting and repainting the image on the screen. A dot appeared amid the clutter.   
“I got him,” announced Randy.  
“Where?” asked asked Danny and Frank together.   
Randy peered at the radar screen again. The dot on the screen on the screen appeared and disappeared and the reappeared. “Bearing two-four-eight,” he said. Frank’s wheel spun, his bow swung around and he steamed off through the thick fog. No sooner had Frank settled on to his new course, than a garbled voice crackled out of the radio.  
“Marine Franklin……..this……..Deep……Ran….er…….have…..are……” The transmission stopped with a final squelch of static.  
There was a pregnant silence in Frank’s wheelhouse.  
“Sounds like they might be in trouble,” said Randy.  
Danny nodded. “Yeah.” He reached for the engine telegraph, but it dinged of its own accord as Frank opened up his engine.   
Danny felt the shivering in the deck plates increase and felt Frank’s bow rising slightly as he planed through the water. Danny bent his legs slightly in response to the increased chop. At the same time, Randy reached for the radio. He picked up the radiophone, turned a couple of knobs and held it to his ear. He depressed the push-to-talk switch.  
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” he said, “This is the tugboat Marine Franklin relaying a possible mayday for the the Deep Water Ranger. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” He released the push to talk switch and waited. The hiss of static continued to fill the wheelhouse.   
After a second or two, a voice spoke. “Confirm relayed mayday, this is Canadian Coast Guard ship Lord Beaverbrook, ship actual, please confirm mayday location, course and speed.”  
Randy key the radio mike again. “Stand by, Beaverbrook,” he said. He stared at the radars screen again, searching through the radar clutter, looking for the Deep Water Ranger. The radar blip that was the Deep Water Ranger appeared and disappeared and reappeared. He keyed the mike again. “Last confirmed position is bearing two-four-eight.”  
“Copy that,”said Beaverbrook, “confirm course two-four-eight.” There was another pause. “Please conform your course and speed.”  
“Copy that, Beaverbrook,” he said.   
Frank cut in. “Beaverbrook ship actual, this is Frank ship actual,” he said. “Our bearing is zero-six-two, speed fourteen knots.”  
“Copy that, Frank ship actual,”said Beaverbrook. There was a short pause. Then Beaverbrook came on the radio again. “We are on an intercept course and should rendezvous with you in thirty minutes at bearing one-eight-nine.”  
“Copy that,” said Frank. Everyone looked at everyone else. There was a moment of silence. It seemed to last for several eternities. Eventually, Danny spoke.  
“Looks like this evening jut got a lot more interesting.”

The next half hour passed by at seemed like a snails’ pace. Nobody spoke. The only sounds were the throbbing of Frank’s engine, the constant drumming of the rain on top of his wheelhouse and the crackling of the radio. They all jumped when Beaverbrook’s voice unexpectedly crackled out of the radio.  
“This is Beaverbrook ship actual calling Frank ship actual, I am off your starboard side, please signal your location.”  
Randy picked up the radio hand set and keyed the mike. “Beaverbrook, this is Marine Franklin, First Mate speaking,” said Randy, “we are still on course zero-six-two, speed fourteen knots.”  
“Copy that Marine Franklin,” replied Beaverbrook. There were a few seconds of static, then Beaverbrook spoke again. “We have unconfirmed reports that Deep Water Ranger has launched lifeboats. We are asking all ships in the area to assist with search and rescue operations. Will you comply with search and rescue request?”  
“Copy that,” replied Randy.  
“Prepare to come around to bearing one-six-two and standby to fall in astern of me,” replied Beaverbrook.  
“Copy that,” replied Randy.  
Danny issued a rapid string of orders. Frank put his rudder hard over and his bow came around. Standing over the radar screen, Randy was turning knobs and pushing buttons. After a second or two, he called out, “I have Beaverbrook on my scope.”  
“Where is he?” asked Frank and Danny at the same time.  
“Bearing zero-three-zero,” replied Randy, “speed fifteen knots.”  
“OK,” replied Frank, “continuing to come around.” Frank’s bow continued to swing through a wide arc as he came around onto his new heading. As he changed his heading, The waves began to strike Frank’s now broadside, throwing up curtains of white spray. He rocked noticeably in the chop and plowed through the water with a steady thud-thud-thud. Everyone bent their knees, bracing themselves against the increased turbulence. Eventually, Frank completed his turn and swung his rudder back to his centreline. Frank heeled over slightly to starboard as the waves struck his hull fully broadside.   
“Randy, how much distance is there between us and Beaverbrook?” asked Danny.  
Randy cast a glance his radar scope again. “Hard to say for certain,” he replied after a couple of seconds. “There’s a lot of sea return,” he paused trying to gauge the distance between Frank and Beaverbrook despite the clutter. “Around a a thousand meters,” he said at last.  
Danny thought for a second or two, trying to visualize where Frank was in relation to Beaverbrook. He walked over to where Randy was standing over the radar screen and studied it for several minutes. “What’s our current speed?” he asked. Danny stared at the screen, trying to mentally work out the navigation.   
“Fourteen knots,” replied Randy.  
Danny frowned thought fully, ignoring Frank’s broadside wallowing. “What’s his speed,” he asked nodding at the radar screen. Danny already knew what that was, having looked at the read out, but he wanted to hear it anyway.  
“Fourteen knots,” interjected Frank.  
“Slow to twelve,” replied Danny.   
Frank’s engine telegraph dinged in response as he slowed his speed FULL HEAD to AHEAD SLOW. Danny walked back from where he had been standing next to Randy in front of the radars screen back to where he had been standing in the middle of the wheel house. The world outside the Frank’s windows was still shrouded in thick grey mist. A heavy silence fell once again in Frank’s wheelhouse. The only sound was the steady ping-ping-ping of Frank’s depth finder. A screen mounted from the ceiling just above Danny’s head showed the depth and the contour of the sea bed. A multicoloured line tracing the contour of the seabed crawled in real time across the screen. The depth finder read twenty meters. A faint glow appeared through the fog in the distance. Danny picked up a pair of binoculars and raised them to his eyes. He peered through them. He could just resolve the lights of a ship through the fog. The wind shifted and the fog bank thinned, revealing the red and white hull of a Canadian Coast Guard ship. The name Lord. Beaverbrook was stencilled in white letters over his anchor holes and across his transom. Beaverbrook’s superstructure was painted a bright, pristine white. His exterior lights lit him up like and Christmas tree. The fog bank caught and refracted the light coming from Beaverbrook’s spotlights. From a distance he appeared to be surrounded by a bright, misty halo of light. A long trail of foam bubbled out from under his stern as his propellers thrashed the water below the surface. Microscopic plankton glowed blue in Beaverbrook’s wake, agitated into bioluminescence by the motion of his propellers.  
Beaverbrook’s voice spoke out of Frank’s radio again. “Marine Franklin,” he said, “this Lord Beaverbrook, ship actual,” said the Coast Guard ship, “we see you on our port side. Please maintain current speed and distance. Do you copy?”  
Danny picked up the radio and key the mike. “Roger that, Beaverbrook,” he replied, “we will maintain this course and speed.” He put the handset back in its cradle and turned to Randy. “What our ETA to Deep Water Ranger’s last known position?”  
Randy consulted his radar scope again. “If we stay on our current course and speed, our ETA is approximately forty minutes.”  
Danny was silent for a moment or two as he considered this information. “Let’s try to raise him on the radio again,” he said.  
Randy nodded. He picked up the radio again and keyed the mike. “Deep Water Ranger,” he said, “this is Marine Franklin, we are in bound to your location on a a bearing of zero-six-four.” He paused and took his finger off the press-to-talk button. The soft hiss of static filled the wheelhouse. Danny, Frank and Randy all exchanged unspoken looks. “We estimate that we will arrive at your location in approximately forty minutes.” He paused again. Again there was no response. “Do you copy?”  
Randy’s eyes flicked from the fog outside to his radars screen and back. The movement of Randy’s head was almost imperceptible, but Danny broke the silence that had fallen again and said, “is the Deep Water Ranger still on radar?” Randy nodded, brushing aside his surprise at the sudden noise.  
“Yeah,” he replied, glancing at his plot again. “He’s where he’s been all night.”  
Danny frowned again. “No response on radio?”  
Randy shook his head.  
“Try him again.”  
Randy nodded, picked up the radio and hailed the Deep Water Ranger for a third time, and again there was silence, save the hiss of static. This time, Danny walked over to look at the radar screen himself.   
The radar blip that was that the Deep Water Ranger glowed steadily on Randy’s plot.   
“I think things are starting to calm down out there,” replied Randy, not taking his eyes off of the radar screen. “I don’t think they’ve disappeared for at least the last five minuets.”  
Danny nodded and frowned thoughtfully, trying to piece it all together and get a sense of the big picture. He turned to the tugboat. “Frank does the Deep Water Ranger ring any bells?” he asked.   
Frank gave the suggestion of a shrug. “Sorry, Danny,” he replied after a second’s thought. “Can’t say I’ve heard the name before.”  
Danny frowned again. He had hoped that Frank might have had prior history with the Deep Ocean Ranger, but that didn’t seem to be the case. He continued thinking, trying to piece everything together and wondering if he was missing something.  
Randy interrupted his thoughts. “Do you think his radio is down?” he asked.  
Danny shrugged. He had no idea. “It’s certainly possible,” he replied. “What’s our ETA?” he asked after a second or two.  
Randy checked his radar plot again. “Our ETA is approximately twenty minutes,” he replied.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Silence fell in Frank’s wheelhouse again. Danny suddenly realized that the sound of the rain drumming on the roof had noticeably abated. He tried to think of when that had happened and drew a blank. He pushed the thought aside and returned his attention to the situation at hand. Now is not a good time to be distracted, he thought. Frank bobbed gently in the light chop. The marine weather radio chattered quietly in the background. Danny scanned the horizon with his binoculars again. The coast was an invisible line in the fog shrouded darkness off to Danny’s left. On the right, farther out to sea, Beaverbrook shone brightly under his bright lights. They were tracking up the coast. The radar plot said that they were about ten miles off shore, just opposite the entrance to Musqudobit Harbour. The lighthouse at the end of Martinique Point blinked red and green in the distance.   
Danny raised his binoculars to his eyes again and scanned the horizon. He thought he saw something in the darkness. He stopped scanning and focused on a spot well out to sea between between the coast and Beaverbrook.   
Randy must have noticed that Danny had spotted something because he picked up his own binoculars and left his position in front of the radar plot to stand next to Danny. He put his binoculars up to his eyes and began scanning the horizon. “What do you see?” he asked.  
“I’m not sure,” replied Danny, still searching. “I thought I saw of flicker of light.”  
“Where?” asked Randy.  
“Out to sea,” said Danny, “but inboard of Beaverbrook.”  
Randy shifted his gaze, staring hard into the darkness. For what seemed like a long time, he didn’t see anything, then something caught his eye. A winking green navigation light shone brightly out of the darkness. “There,” said Randy, pointing. He spoke so loudly that he made everybody jump slightly.  
“Where?” asked Danny. By way of an answer, Randy took hold of Danny’s binoculars and pointed them in the right direction.   
“You see it now?” asked Randy.  
Danny stared for a second or two. “Where is it?” he started to say, “I don’t-,” he stopped. Something was flickering in the corner of his eye. Danny shifted his gaze slightly and focused on the disturbance. It was a winking green light. “Yeah, I see it,” he said. He adjusted his binoculars and brought the blinking green light into clearer focus. He stared hard for a long time. His eyes began to water slightly from the strain. Danny thought he could see the outline of a freighter eclipsing the stars that were appearing and disappearing behind the scudding clouds. “You see that Frank?” he asked.  
Frank shifted his gaze to the spot in the darkness that Danny and Randy had been staring for the past severally minutes. He squinted for several seconds and they watched as the faint of the image of the freighter came into slightly sharper detail in the tugboat’s pupils. Danny, Randy and Frank studied the drifting freighter for a long time. They could just barely make the accommodation block over his stern. His eyes were closed were closed and most of his running were off.  
Danny and Randy looked at each other. “Well no wonder we couldn’t get him on the radio,” said Randy, lowering his binoculars.  
Danny nodded, “yeah,” he said, “looks like his power is out.” Danny paused to look through his binoculars again.   
“What do you think, Frank?” asked Randy.  
The tugboat was silent for several seconds as he surveyed the scene. “I’m not sure,” he said after a silence that had felt as if it had lasted for several eternities. In actuality it was only a few seconds. “I don’t like the look of this.”  
Danny nodded in agreement. Something about this seems off, he thought. “Let’s get on the horn with Beaverbrook again,” he said. “Get some instructions.”  
Frank tuned his radio to the Coast Guard band with a squelch of static. “Lord Beaverbrook, this is Marine Franklin ship actual, we have sighted the Deep Ocean Ranger and are requesting instructions. Please advise over.”  
Beaverbrook’s voice crackled out of the speaker. “Copy that, ship actual. What’s your read on the situation?”  
“We’re not sure,” replied Frank. “Ranger’s lights are off and his eyes are closed,” replied Frank. “He could have simply lost power,” he replied. “He hasn’t responded to our radio hails.”  
“We’ve wondered the same thing,” replied Beaverbrook. “My captain is going to send over a boarding party to find to see if we can learn anything,” he said. “Hold your position and stand by further instructions.”  
“Copy that,” replied Frank.  
Everyone looked at everyone else. “Looks like they’re as much in the dark as we are,” replied Danny.

There was a tense silence in Frank’s wheelhouse again. Through his binoculars Danny watched as one of Beaverbrook’s zodiacs was slid out of its storage bay lowered into the water. Under the harsh glare of his floodlights a boarding party climbed through a hatch and down a rope ladder where the zodiac sat waiting, bobbing in Beaverbrook’s wake. The steel cables were detached and the zodiac peeled away from Beaverbrook’s side, leaving a wide V of white water in its wake. Danny and Randy lost sight of it almost immediately, as they didn’t have the same military grade night optics that Beaverbrook and his crew had. The zodiac carrying the boarding party was only faintly visible in Frank’s pupils as it arrowed through the darkness across the several miles of open sea that separated Frank and Beaverbrook from Ranger.   
After several minutes of silence, Danny finally spoke. He was half whispering, but his voice seemed overly loud in the silence. “Randy, turn on the radio,” said Danny. “Let’s see if can learn anything by listening in.”  
Randy nodded and turned the knob, skipping through the marine bands, looking for the right frequency. He found it after about five minutes of searching. Voices crackled out of the speaker.  
“Beaverbrook actual, White Team lead, we have eyes on you. You have permission to board Deep Water Ranger.”  
“Copy that, Beaverbrook actual, we are boarding now.”  
The silence hung heavily in Frank’s wheelhouse as they listened to the radio chatter back and forth between Beaverbrook and the boarding party. Danny instinctively walked to the window and raised his binoculars again. He peered through them for several minutes trying see into the darkness, wondering what was happening on board Ranger. He was tempted to have Frank try to hail Ranger again, but he wanted keep the channel open in case Beaverbrook tried to contact them again.  
Disembodied voices continued to issue from the speaker. “Beaverbrook actual, we are aboard. There appears to be no one on the main deck. We are going to conduct a search.”  
“Copy that team leader. You are clear to proceed.”  
“Copy that, Beaverbrook actual.”  
Frank’s radio hissed static for several seconds before a different came over the comm. “Team one to Team two. We’re going to go topside. You take the engine room.”  
“Copy that Team one. See you on the other side.”  
The radio chatter went silent again as the boarding part split up according to their assignments. The radio speaker hissed static for several minutes. Nobody spoke. Everybody had their ears peels for the slightest squelch out of the radio.  
After a couple of minutes a voice came out of the speaker. “Team One to Beaverbrook, we’ve reached the bridge, there appears to be no one here.”  
“Beaverbrook to Team One, copy that, copy that can you ascertain if Ranger’s EPERB beacon is active.”  
Danny, Randy and Frank all traded looks. “I wonder what happened,” asked Frank as the radio went momentarily silent again.  
Randy shrugged. “I have no idea,” he replied. “Their EPIRB beacon should have gone off automatically. It would have lit up Frank’s radar like a Christmas tree,” he said. “There’s no way at all that we would have missed it.”  
Danny frowned thoughtfully. He knew that Randy had a point. An Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon was standard equipment for almost every ship in the world. The Canadian Coast Guard required them by law for every ship operating in Canadian waters. The law also required that certain radio frequencies were to be kept clear of of traffic to ensure the maximum likelihood that a locator beacon would be heard.  
“Team two to Team one,” crackled the radio, “we’ve checked the engine room. There’s nobody here.”  
“Copy that, Team two. We’re moving on to the accommodation block.”  
“Copy that.”  
Danny, Randy and Frank all looked at each other. “The crew’s not on board?” said Danny in confusion. “How did we get a radio call then?”  
Randy shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he replied, “maybe it came from Ranger?”  
Danny nodded. “Yeah, maybe,” he said. He had a sudden thought, picked up the radio and depressed the push-to-talk switch. “This is Captain Johnson breaking in, please be advised we are breaking in.”  
“Copy that,” replied Beaverbrook, “what are your intentions?”  
“We’ve been listening on the radio,” said Danny, “and there seems to be no crew. Either they abandoned ship for some reason, or Ranger never had a crew to begin with. We’d like to talk to him. Maybe he can tell us what happened.”  
There were several seconds of silence. No doubt Beaverbrook, his captain and the rest of Beaverbrook’s bridge officers were conferring with each other over the possible pros and cons of Danny’s plan. After a minute or two, Beaverbrook came back on the radio, with a terse “request approved.”  
Danny, Randy and Frank all exchanged looks. “Well, somebody sure pissed in his fuel tank,” said the tugboat.  
Danny ignored the comment. He agreed with Frank’s assessment the Coast Guard ship seemed to be unhappy about something. Maybe he wanted to be the one to talk to Ranger, thought Danny, and he got overruled. Maybe that’s why he sounded a little hacked off. Danny pushes the thought aside. It was time to go to work. He turned to Frank. “See if you can wake him up.”  
Frank gave the impression of a nod. A long bass note issued from his horn. AAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOO! It echoed across the dark water and made Danny’s ear drums throb. He could hear it clear even from inside Frank’s wheelhouse with both doors shut. He walked to the window, raised his binoculars to his eyes and stared through them for a long time. He scanned Ranger from bow to stern, looking for signs of life. He couldn’t see any. Danny frowned. “Call him again,” he said.  
Frank gave the impression of a nod and sounded his horn again. AAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOO!   
Danny stared carefully through his binoculars at Ranger, searching for any signs of from the sleeping freighter. The rain and the thick fog bank had finally moved off. The scene was lit only by moon light. Ranger’s hull was long, low shape that seemed to almost disappear into the water. His superstructure, which sat over his stern was pale white block of reflected moon light. Danny frowned thoughtfully, Ranger didn’t seem to want to wake up. So, how do we get him to talk?  
Randy almost seemed to be reading Danny’s thoughts. “Can he talk?” he asked.  
Danny frowned even more deeply. He had heard stories of ships who had become mute. Such instances were rare and nobody really understood why it happened, although there were lots of theories. He supposed that he had to consider the possibility that this was once such instance, and yet they had received a radio call. He shook his head. “No,” he replied, still staring through his binoculars at Ranger, “he can talk,” he said, “he just doesn’t want to.” He stared at the distant freighter for a while, wondering what else to try.  
An idea suddenly came to him and Danny walked over to the instrument panel on the opposite side of Frank’s wheelhouse from where Randy stood monitoring the radars scope. He flipped a couple of switches and twin beams of light stabbed out into the darkness. The area around Frank was suddenly lit up as bright as day. Intense white light spilled into Frank’s wheelhouse, making everyone momentarily squint, as night time rapidly turned to artificial day. Danny’s eyes screwed painfully as his pupils dilated contracted in response the change in light levels. He took hold of a joystick set into the instrument panel and gave it a tug. The two beams of light from the spotlights mounted on Frank’s roof swept across the expanse of open sea that lay between Frank and Ranger. They stopped roughly in the middle of his accommodation block, just above his main deck. Danny nudged the joystick again and the bright cones of light swept upward until they came to a stop roughly where Danny had thought the freighter’s eyes should be.  
As soon as they stopped moving, Ranger’s eyes snapped into existence. Randy steeped out from behind the radar screen and picked up a pair of binoculars. The white paint of Ranger’s accommodation black flared brightly under the twin beams of Frank’s searchlights. Through his binoculars, Randy could see Ranger’s eyes flicking back and forth from window to window. Randy nudged Danny. “He looks confused,” he said  
Danny nodded in agreement. “Yeah,” he said, not taking his eyes off of the freighter, “almost like he doesn’t know how he got here.”  
Randy gave a return nod. “OK, Frank,” he said. “Ranger’s awake. Looks like you’re up.”  
Right, thought the tugboat. He paused for a second or two, wondering where to begin, but before he could say or do anything, Ranger interjected.  
“Wh-wh-who are you?” he asked, eyeing Frank and Beaverbrook. “Where am I? How did I get here?”  
Frank and Beaverbrook exchanged looks. In Frank’s wheelhouse Danny and Randy were doing the same. “My name is Frank,” replied Frank patiently, “and this is Beaverbrook. We received your initial radio call. We tried to respond to your hail, but we didn’t get a reply, so we called it in to the Coast Guard.”  
“Can you tell us where you came from?” asked Beaverbrook, “and maybe what happened to your crew?”   
Ranger suddenly seemed to be thinking very hard. He was trying to remember what had happened to him. Everything was a blur. He had put out to sea from Mumbai six weeks ago with a cargo of grain. Ranger had safely safely transited the Suez Canal and docked in Alexandria, Egypt, where he had offloaded his cargo and taken on a new cargo of rice. He didn’t remember much of what had happened after that. He had apparently sailed out of Mediterranean and crossed the Atlantic Ocean under his own power, without his crew, although he seemed to recall that he had had one, when he had left Mumbai, he couldn’t remember when he had lost them, but he thought that it was some time after Alexandria. He also seemed to recall a storm at some point after that as well, and a collision. He supposed that would explain the ten foot gash in his hull below the waterline. “Sorry,” replied Ranger, after he had finished sorting through his jumbled and disjointed memories, “but I don’t remember very much.”  
Frank suddenly interjected. “Danny, Randy, I think he’s been damaged. I think I see a slight list.”  
Danny raised his binoculars again. “Are you sure, Frank?” he asked, “I don’t see anything.”  
Frank’s voice carried the suggestion of a nod. “Yeah,” he replied, “I’m sure.” He paused momentarily and studied Ranger again. He was drifting with the current his bow was slowly coming around to face Frank and Beaverbrook. Ranger was definitely listing, Danny noticed. He turned to Randy, “I think you should get on the horn with Beaverbrook,” he said, “see if they they do damage assessment.”   
Randy nodded and walked back over the the radio. He picked up the handset, put it to his ear and depressed the push-to-talk switch. “Beaverbrook ship actual this is First Mate Randy Alderman,” he said. Randy let go of the push-to-talk button and waited for the Coast Guard ship to respond.  
After a few seconds of static, Beaverbrook’s voice spoke in Randy’s ear, “I am receiving you,” replied Beaverbrook, “go ahead.”  
“Copy that,” replied Randy. “We think that Ranger has a list. Can you confirm? Over.”  
There were a few more seconds of silence as Beaverbrook and his officers conferred with each other. After a couple of minutes Beaverbrook came back on the line. “We can confirm that Ranger appears to have take some damage,” replied Beaverbrook, “there appears to be some flooding in his midship cargo hold,” he said. “Red Team is attempting to do damage control.”


	10. Chapter 10

“Copy that,” replied Randy. “Do you have an estimate on when their assessment will be complete?” he asked.  
“Stand by,” replied Beaverbrook. The radio hissed static for several seconds before Beaverbrook replied, “not at this time.”  
“OK, copy that,” replied Randy. He traded a frown with Danny, who had been listening to the conversation with a half an ear, while still watching Ranger through a pair of binoculars. The freighter was drifting with the current. Danny couldn’t be certain, but he thought that Ranger was down at the bow well.   
“Frank, what do you think?” asked Danny after several minutes silence had elapsed. He wasn’t really sure what kind of answer he expected out of the tugboat, but he decided to ask anyway.   
The tugboat was silent for several seconds, as he thought about Danny’s question. When Frank finally spoke, his voice carried the suggestion of a shrug. “I think Beaverbrook is just playing by the book,” he replied at last. “He’s a Coastie. They tend not to deviate from regs.”  
Danny nodded. He had had his own experiences with the Coast Guard and was well aware they were sticklers for protocol. He frowned again. There has to be a way to find out what’s going on, he thought. He turned to Randy. “See if you can find boarding parties’ frequencies,” he said after a couple of minutes considerations of the problem.  
Randy nodded. He turned and walked back to his usual post in behind the radar scope. The radio was next. He slowly turned the dials, searching for the right frequencies. After a minute or two, the sound of radio chatter once again filled the wheelhouse.  
“Beaverbrook actual, this is Red Team leader.”  
“Go ahead, Red Team leader.” It wasn’t the Coast Guard ship that was speaking. Danny and Randy traded a look. They both appeared to be thinking the same thing. This must be the captain. Beaverbrook must be talking to the other team.   
“Beaverbrook actual, we’ve completed our sweep. There’s nobody here, and the ship doesn’t seem to remember very much. We’ve found evidence of damage amidships, just below the waterline on the starboard side-,”  
“-do you have a visual on the damage?”  
“Negative, Beaverbrook actual, but the ship assures us that it’s pretty bad.”  
There was a short pause. “OK. Red Team, White Team, time to pack it up come back to the barn.”  
“Copy that.”  
“Roger that, Beaverbrook actual.”  
There were several seconds of silence in Frank’s wheelhouse again. The hiss of static was broken with a loud squelch that made everyone’s ears hurt. Beaverbrook’s voice came out of the speaker again. “Looks like we’re done here,” he said. ”You are cleared to bring Ranger into port.”  
“Copy that,” replied Randy. He directed his attention to Frank. “Can you see if Ranger’s engine is working?” A sudden thought had occurred to him. Ranger didn’t seem to have a crew. If his engine didn’t work, they would need a skeleton crew to man the lines. After a brief quiet conversation with Ranger, Frank’s answer came back negative. Randy nodded and got on the radio again. “Beaverbrook ship actual, this is Marine Franklin, it occurs to us that Ranger has no crew and no working engine. He’s going to need a tow, and we don’t have enough man power to spare for a skeleton crew, please advise, over.”  
Static hissed out over the radio for a few more seconds before Beaverbrook spoke again. “Copy that,” he said, “please stand by.”  
Randy nodded. “Copy,” he said, “standing by.” A few minutes of silence drifted by as Beaverbrook and his captain, conferred on Beaverbrook’s bridge. Finally, Beaverbrook got on the radio again. “We’ve left some of our people on-board,” said the Coast Guard ship without preamble, “they’ll provided with you whatever support you need.”  
“Roger that,” replied Randy, “we appreciate the assist.”  
As Randy was speaking, Frank’s engine telegraph dinged and he began to motor slowly forward. Beaverbrorok, who had been stationkeeping, a several hundred metres away, from Frank, began to slowly fall astern, as Frank began to close the distance with Ranger. Danny cast an eye up toward the clock mounted on the bulkhead over Frank’s wheelhouse windows. It was 03:30. Danny was surprised. He tried remember the last time he had looked at Frank’s clock. It must have been around midnight. He had had no idea that over three hours had gone by. He took his eyes off of Frank’s clock and looked out the window again. Ranger, was sliding slowly across the horizon as Frank turned on to a parallel course thirty meters away from Ranger. Danny watched as the brightly lit freighter’s hull slid by. He turned to Randy and said, “mind the store for me.” Randy nodded, and Danny turned and crossed to the back of the wheelhouse in a couple of strides. He opened a door and stepped into a narrow corridor. He walked past his quarters, and Randy’s and reached the companion way at the aft end of the corridor.  
Danny went down the ladder and pushed open the hatch and went out on deck. It was damp and a little chilly. The deck was slightly wet with moisture from the earlier rain. The Deck Chief, Andy Masterson, turned at the sound of the creaking metal as the hatch opened. “Danny,” he said, “what bring you down here?”  
Danny shrugged and nodded over at the bright lit Beaverbrook, who was now about about a thousand meters away. “The Coasties have finally give us something to do,” he replied.  
Andy chuckled. He was short barrel chested man with a prominent widow’s peak. “Well, it’s about time they got off their fat asses and let us do our job,” he said.  
Danny cast an eye toward the looming freighter. “I thought I’d come down and fill you in on what the situation.” He spoke for fifteen minutes, filling Andy and the deck hands in on what had been happening. Ranger’s bow loomed on the horizon as he spoke. The walkie talkie clipped to his belt crackled loudly.   
“Danny,” said Frank’s voice.  
Danny clicked his walkie talk. “What is it?”  
“We’re in position and ready to receive towing cables,” said Frank.  
Danny nodded. “Copy that,” he said. As he spoke, a pair of cables snaked down from Ranger’s bow and into the water. Andy turner and barked some orders at the deck gang, who had been lolling about, without much to do, and listening to Danny and Andy’s conversation. “C’mon,” he said loudly, “get off your assess and in gear! Time to earn your pay.” They jumped at these words, as if they had been sitting on hot coals. Ed Murphy reached for a long boat hook. He bent over Frank’s low gunwale and snagged one of the two lines floating slackly in the water. He hauled it on board, and pulling the thick cable through the notch in the middle of the double capstan in the middle of Frank’s aft deck, wrapped folded it it over the heavy bollard.  
Danny keyed his walkie talkie again.”OK,” he said, “Ranger is secure.”  
“Copy that,” crackled Frank’s voice out of his walkie talkie.  
Under his feet, Danny felt the deck plates shiver slightly. He hear Frank’s engine rumble faintly as the tugboat opened up his throttle. A trail of white foam bubble out from under Frank’s stern, and the tow line stretched out taut. He heard it creak slightly as Frank took Ranger in tow. It took a couple of hours to tow Ranger in port. The sun was just coming up and painting the horizon in shades of purple and gold behind the scudding clouds. They were dark grey and threatened rain. Masson and Dixon had been waiting for Frank and Ranger at the outer marker.  
“We heard you guys had an interesting night,” said Dixon as the little flotilla approached.  
“You have no idea,” replied Frank. “I’m looking for to being berthed for awhile and getting some fuel in me.” Frank’s tank was almost empty and he was practically running on fumes.   
“We know,” replied Masson with a chuckle. “We were listening in on the radio overnight. We’ve been given instructions to bring Ranger into the harbour.”  
“Jim apparently want to see you,” continue Dixon. “Apparently, you’ve been chartered.”  
“For what?” asked Danny. Frank, Randy and Danny all traded a surprised look. Citadel Marine had occasionally take on freelance work in the past, when regular contracts were hard to come by, but business had been good lately and the fleet had been busy.   
Masson gave the impression of a shrug. “We don’t know,” he said, “only that you’d been hired for a job.”

Half an hour later, Frank was tied up at the company dock. The fuel truck was sitting on the dock waiting for him. Even before the deckhands and finished tying him up, the dock workers were manhandling the fuel line across the dock and into the big tugboat’s fueling port. “Oh,” said Frank, “that feels so good.” He could feel the marine diesel fuel sloshing out of the tanker truck and into his fuel tank.   
As Frank was refueled, Danny and Randy walked down the gangplank and down the dock to the company office. They went inside and paused momentarily at the secretary’s desk. She was slightly heavy set woman with iron grey hair named Gladys.   
“Morning Gladys,” said Danny as he scribble his signature across the bottom of Frank’s fuel consumption report.  
“Morning Danny,” she replied as she sat typing at her keyboard, “heard you had an interesting night.”  
Danny and Rand traded a look. “I assume Masson and Dixon told you that?” asked Danny.  
Gladys nodded, indicating the bank of radios, sitting on a shelf squawking and hissing static. Occasionally a voice issued out of one of the speakers.   
“Alice bring your bow around to bearing zero-two-eight.”  
“Coming around to zero-two-eight.”  
“You’re in too close, Banscott, you need to back away.”  
“OK, that looks good, but you need to swing over to left.”  
“Copy that, moving over.”  
“So what’s this about a charter?” asked Danny, as Gladys continued to clack away at her keyboard.   
“You’ll have to talk to Jim about that,” she replied without looking up at Danny and Randy. “He’s waiting for you upstairs in his office.”  
Danny and Randy walked past her desk and into the day lounge for the crews of the standby tugs. Today, it was Banstar’s crew. “Morning Dick,” said Randy. Dick Bannon was Banscott’s Chief Engineer.  
“Morning Randy,” replied Dick, “rumour is you boys have been chartered.”  
Danny nodded. “Yeah, that’s the rumour,” he replied. “Don’t suppose you know what this is about?”  
Dick shook his head. “Sorry, Danny,” he replied with shrug “I’m as much in the dark as you are.”  
Danny and Rand exchanged a look. They were both thinking the same thing. Clearly the news had gotten around the fleet without them knowing it. “Well, come on,” said Danny, “we may as well go find out what all the hot shit is.”   
They rounded a corner, opened a door and stepped inside. Danny and Randy found themselves at the foot of a narrow staircase. They mounted it and a second or two later, they found themselves facing another door. This one had a brass knocker shaped like an anchor mounted on it. Danny rapped it a couple of times and a muffled voice called out from the other side of the door. “It’s open.”  
Danny pushed open the door and they stepped inside.The room was large and occupied the entire second floor. A large desk covered with papers stood at one end. A large framed map of the Halifax Harbour and Bedford Basin hung on the wall behind the desk. Pictures of various past tugs and tugboat captains dotted the walls. A low table and a cluster of chairs sat in front of the desk. The opposite end of the room was a wall of glass, with a panoramic view of the harbour. Bright morning sunshine flooded in through the large windows. Danny walked to the window wall and watched at the fuel truck drove back down the dock, leaving a cloud of blue exhaust in its wake. At the end of the dock, Banscott was backing away from his berth, under a cloud of diesel fumes. He spun around inside his own length and motored off, leaving a swirl of bubbles in his wake.  
A door opened and Danny and Randy turned in unison as Joe Kinnemen entered the room. “Danny, Randy,” he said, “good morning! Help yourselves to some coffee.” He gestured to a coffee urn and several mugs bearing the company logo on a side table. “Sounds like you two earned it after the night you had last night.”   
Danny casually sauntered over the coffee urn and poured himself a cup of coffee. He then turned walked over to where Joe and Randy were sitting in two of the chairs around the little table. Randy had a half eaten donut in his hand. Danny sat down opposite Joe and took a sip of his coffee. It was strong and black and looked like a mug of roofing tar.  
“So why don’t you tell me about your night,” said Joe, a mug of coffee in his hand.  
Danny and Randy took turns filling him in. Joe didn’t interrupt much, mostly just letting the two men talk. “I don’t suppose, you’ve heard anything more about Ranger?” asked Randy.  
Joe took another sip of his coffee and shook his head. “No,” he replied, “not yet, but Masson said that the Coasties were waiting on the dock for him.”  
“Well, that’s nothing new,” said Randy with a shrug. “They were waiting for Gladstone too.”  
“True,” conceded Joe, “but that was a straightforward grounding. This is different. Ranger lost his crew and has no idea what happened to them. You can imagine how the Coast Guard might be very interested in that.”  
“Scuttlebut is that we’ve been chartered,” said Danny, after a minute or two of silence.   
Joe took a long swig of his coffee. “Scuttlebut’s true,” he replied.  
Danny and Randy exchanged a look. Joe didn’t usually hire out his tugs. There was usually more than enough work around Bedford Basin to keep them busy. Joe took a long swig of his coffee. “Scuttlebut’s true,” he replied.  
“So, what’s the job?” asked Danny. His voice was level, but it was clear that he was interested.  
By way of an answer, Joe put down his coffee on the small table in front of him. He got up, walked over to his desk and began shuffling through the various papers scattered across its surface. After a couple of minutes of searching, he found what he was looking for. He picked up a sheaf of papers out of the pile and walked back over to where Danny and Randy were sitting and nursing their coffee. “Here,” he said, “take a look.” He handed Danny the sheaf of papers.   
Danny took them and began to read through them. His eyebrows went up as he read. “So,” he said slowly, absorbing the information, “we’re supporting a search for a nuclear submarine?”  
Joe nodded. “Yeah,” he replied, “well not officially,” he amended, “officially, you’re supporting a search for a shipwreck from the War of 1812.”  
“OK,” replied Randy, “and how did we get involved in this exactly?”  
Joe shrugged.”They came to me,” he replied.   
Danny quickly rifled through the pages Joe had given him again. He had seen no mention of who was tendering the contract. “And who is ‘they’?” asked Danny.  
“Interocean Expeditions,” he replied.  
At these words, Danny searched his memory. He felt as though the name rang a bell, but for some reason he couldn’t place it. His thoughts were interrupted but Randy who swore loudly.  
“Oh fuck me!” He exclaimed loudly. “Joe, how the hell did you ever get in bed with IOE?”  
Danny looked confusedly back and forth between Joe and Randy. “OK,” he said, “clearly I’m missing something.” His gaze settled on Randy. “Care to fill me in?”  
Randy eyed his captain. “I guess you wouldn’t have known, would you?” he asked, “you were merchant marine, not navy.”  
“OK,” replied Danny slowly, “and what’s supposed to mean?”  
“Are you familiar with the sinking of the submarine K-645?” Randy asked.  
Danny thought for another minute or two. “Uhhhhh, yeah,” he replied after a minute or two, “it rings a bell, why?” The K-645 had been a Chinese submarine that has sank in one of the deepest parts of the Pacific in 1994. The Chinese government had never publicly acknowledged the loss of the K-645, but then there lots of things that Beijing had swept under the rug. The K-645 had been the lead boat of her class. She had been rumoured to a quantum leap in submarine technology. She had been caught by spy satellites leaving Yulin Naval Base in southern China just before dawn on June 3rd, 1994, on what was supposed to have been a routine shake down cruise. When she didn’t return after her scheduled three day cruise, something remarkable happened. Nothing. The Chinese acted as if nothing was wrong and to the naval and intelligence communities in Canada, the United States and the UK this was decidedly odd and a plan was quickly hatched to find the wreck of the K-645, assuming that there was one.  
“Ever hear of the Globex Eagle?” asked Randy.  
That name definitely rang a bell in Danny’s memory. “Yeah,” he replied, “I have, why?”  
“The Globex Eagle was built by Interocean Expeditions,” explain Danny, “supposedly for deep sea geological prospection, you know for oil and gas and stuff like that, but that was just a bullshit cover story.” Randy took another swig of his coffee. He swallowed and continued. “IOE is a front for the CIA and MI6, hell maybe for us too. It wouldn’t surprise me.”  
Danny gave his first mate a slightly amazed side long look, as if he had never really known him. “How do you know all this?” he asked.  
Randy shrugged. “We were on deployment,” he replied. “Mind you, I was just a sailor first class, so what the hell did I know.” He drained the last dregs of his coffee, got up and poured himself another cup. He sat back down and continued, “anyway, I was assigned to the HMCS Cormorant, we were basing out of Perth for a six month deployment to the Mozambique Channel on anti-pirates patrol. We were half way to our patrol area when we suddenly got diverted.”  
“To where?”asked Danny. “Just south of Diego Garcia,” replied Randy. “The Captain came over the PA system and told us that our original mission had been cancelled.” Randy shrugged. “Anyway when we arrived on station, we found the Globex Explorer sitting off our starboard quarter.”  
“What where they doing?” asked Joe, plainly interested in Randy’s story. “Was your ship able to talk to them?”   
Randy shook his head. “No,” he replied. “Cormie tried, but said it was like talking to a submarine. Ever tried to talking to a sub?” he asked. Joe and Danny both shook their heads no and Randy chuckled. “Don’t waste your breath,” he replied. “You’re lucky if you can get them to give you their registry number.”  
“So, what were they doing?” asked Danny.  
“We never did find out,” replied Randy, “but the Captain and the XO called the entire crew onto the fantail and ordered us not the talk about the mission, said it was now classified top secret. On top of that, they shut down the ship’s radar and the sonar array for the duration of our time on station.”  
Joe and Danny’s eyebrows went up in surprise at this. “Isn’t that-,” Joe began.  
“-kind of unusual,” finished Danny.  
Randy snorted. “It never ever happens,” he replied. “The active array radar sets and the hydrophones for the sonar array were physically turned off. The radar operators and the sonar technicians weren’t even allowed to run simulations.”   
“So then how do you know that the Globex Explorer was a front some kind of intelligence gathering operation?” asked Danny.  
Randy shrugged. “I overheard some of the engineers talking,” he replied. “Apparently they had a break down on their ship and needed parts that we had and they didn’t, so the Captain sent over an away team with the parts they needed.” He took another sip of his coffee. “I overheard them talking when they got back. Apparently they had a detachment of Marines on board.”  
Joe choked on his coffee. “Seriously?” he asked, “US Marines? For what reason?”  
Danny shrugged again. “I don’t know,” he replied, “shipboard security maybe? I guess they they needed though, but that leads me back to my question. Just how did we get involved with IOE?”


	11. Chapter 11

Joe shrugged in response to response to Randy’s question. The long note of Banscott’s horn reverberated, low and muffled, in the background as he backed away from the company pier. Joe took another sip of his coffee. “I didn’t get into bed with them,” he said, “they got into bed with us.”  
Danny and Randy traded a look. “OK,” said Danny, after a minute or two of silence, “I’ll bite, what exactly does that mean?”  
Joe shrugged in reply. He drained the last of his coffee and put down the mug on the wood table in front of him with a solid sounding thunk. “They came to me about three weeks ago,” he began.  
“Who’s ‘they’?” asked Danny.  
Joe shrugged again, “well they said they were from Interocean Expeditions,” replied Joe, he eyed Randy as he said the the words. “At the time, I couldn’t really put my finger on it, but in retrospect I’d be willing to bet they were ex-military.”  
“How could you tell?” asked Danny.  
“It was how they talked,” replied Joe, “the way they carried themselves. At first, I thought maybe IOE just runs a really tight ship, but now, I don’t know.” Joe shrugged again. “In any case, they seemed like they did their homework. They knew practically everything about the two of you, and Frank, down to your shoe size.”  
Danny and Randy exchanged a surprise look. Clearly neither of them had the slightest idea that they could possibly be even remotely that interesting to anybody. “So if you’re interest in the job,” continued Joe, interrupting Danny and Randy’s thoughts, “someone from IOE will be coming to fill you in on the details in a week.”  
Danny and Randy looked at each other again, trying to read each other’s thoughts. For his own part, Danny found that he was intrigued. I probably won’t be able to talk about this without being thrown in prison, but I’d at least like to hear what IOE has to say, he thought. It never hurts to at least have a conversation. Out loud, he said, “I don’t know, Randy, what do you think?”  
Randy silently pursed his lips for several moments, considering his response. In his time in the Navy, Randy had three deployments that he still couldn’t talk about. He wasn’t really keen to add a fourth, and like Danny he found that he at least wanted to hear what IOE had to say. “Yeah, OK,” he said, “OK, let’s at leas hear what they have to say.”  
Joe nodded at these words. “OK,” he replied. “I’ll given ‘em a call and tell them that we’d like to talk. In the mean time, why don’t the two of you go home,” he said. “Get some sleep, you’ve had a long night.”  
Danny and Randy nodded and stood up. As he got to his feet, Danny had to fight to suppress a yawn. He hoped Joe and Randy didn’t see him. Until Joe had mentioned it, Danny hadn’t realized how tired he was. Yeah, he thought, I could definitely use some sleep. Saying good bye to the other two men, Danny exited Joe’s office and walked down stairs. He reached the bottom of the stair and opened the door. Danny stepped out into the day lounge, which took up most of the main floor. It was mostly empty.  
“Morning, Danny.”  
Danny turned at the sound of his name to find himself staring at Arnold Dunwood. “Oh, morning Arnie,” he said. “I guess you drew the boring shift today.”  
Arnold chuckled, “yeah,” he said. Arnold and Masson had been assigned to standby duty. “I think I’d need it after the night you three had last night.”  
Danny chuckled tiredly in response, “yeah,” he said, “it was an interesting night.” He tried to stifle another yawn and was only partially successful. “Sorry, Arnie,” said Danny, “but it’s been a long night and I’m tired, you know…..” he trailed off. He had a strong suspicion that Arnold was going to try to ask about the job that Danny, Randy and Frank had been chartered out for, and he had an equally strong suspicion that most of what he was thinking of agreeing to was classified. To his relief, Arnold nodded.  
“Uh, yeah, sure,” he said. “Don’t let me keep you.”  
“Right,” replied Danny, “well I’ll see you later.” Danny turned away from Arnold and walked toward the door that led out into the company parking lot. Randy followed him, weaving his way through the cars and trucks in the mid morning sunshine. Danny turned and walked in the other direction toward his pick up truck. He got in and turned the key in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life. Danny clunked through the gears, put his foot on the gas pedal and backed out of his parking space. The parking lot was only half full and Danny wove easily through the maze of parked cars. He reached the exit and turned into the flow of traffic. He wound his way up and around Citadel Hill and turned onto Quinpool Road. The traffic was light and moving quickly. Another ten minutes brought him to his intersection and he turned off the main road and out of the flow of traffic onto the narrow side street that led to his house. He drove half way down the block and turned into his driveway. He clunked through the gears again, putting his truck into park. He turned the key and pulled it out of the ignition. The engine died. Danny unbuckled his seat belt with a metallic click.  
He pushed open the door and got out. The soles of his work boots crunched audibly on the asphalt in the drive as he walked up the drive way to the house. Danny fished in his pocket again and produced his house key. The tumblers rattled as he turned the key in the lock. The deadbolt drew back with a solid sounding thunk and Danny pushed open the door. He stepped into the hall. The front door swung shut behind him with a snap. For a second or two, Danny heard only the distant, quiet ticking of the clock in the kitchen and he guess that the house was empty. His thoughts were interrupted a wet sounding snuffling noise and the sound of heavy footsteps on the floor as a large black lab came out of the living room to see who had intruded into its domain. Bruno padded down the hall and gave Danny a sniff. Danny reached down and gave Bruno an affectionate scratch behind the ears. Bruno wagged his tail happily at Danny’s attention.  
Having decided that that was all Danny was good for, Bruno turned walked back up the hall, where he flopped down heavily in front of the kitchen door. Well, thought Danny, so much for me, I guess. He shrugged off his coat and hung it up in the front hall closet. He shut the closet door, bent over and started tugging at the laces of his work boots. After a second or two, he straightened up again, kicking them off and lining them up next to the kids’ running shoes. He stared at the shoes neatly lined up next to each other on the boot mat. I thought the kids were supposed to be at school, he thought. Danny’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of stocking feet on the carpet in the upstairs hallway. He turned and looked up at the sudden sound. Penny was padding down the hall from the bathroom. She saw her father standing in the downstairs hall and turned.  
“Oh,” she said, “hi Dad.”  
“Hi, Penny,” replied Danny. He paused. “Aren’t you supposed to in school.”  
She shook her head. “The teachers have a PD day, remember?”  
Danny nodded. “Oh,” he said, “right.” Now that she mentioned it, he did remember. Penny and Mark’s teachers had sent home letters from the school last week. I guess I forgot, thought Danny, what with last night and then this morning, his thoughts were interrupted by Penny again.  
“Mark’s kind of upset with you, you know,” said Penny.  
Danny had a sinking feeling. He had a sudden sense that he had forgotten something. “About what?” he asked.  
“You were going to watch Clone Wars with him last night, and you weren’t here,” she replied.  
Danny sighed. “Yeah, a lot of things went sideways last night,” he replied. “We were out for way, way longer than we had planned.”  
“So what happened?” asked Penny.  
Danny told her most what happened. He left the conversation he and Randy had had with Joe this morning. He needed to think about how to talk about the job that he, Randy and Danny had been chartered for, partially because he wasn’t sure he was supposed to talk about it, as it was probably a secret government contract, but also because he didn’t even know what the job was yet. “Where’s Mark?” he asked.  
Penny shrugged. “In his room,” she replied. She gestured down the hall, to the door on the other side of the bathroom. A nearly life sized wall decal of Captain Rex brandished a pair of blasters from the outside of Mark’s bedroom door. Danny decided that he would go and talk to Mark. He mounted the steps up to the second floor and stopped in front of Mark’s bedroom door. He pause for a moment or two and listened. The muffled hum of a lightsaber and the high pitched whine of energy weapons emanated from within. He heard a filtered voice say, “watch out! Clankers on the left flank.”  
Danny knocked once and opened the door. Mark was sitting at his computer, a game pad in his pads. His fingers were twitching furiously. On the screen, Ahsoka spun and twirled with her twin lightsabers as she slashed her way through a gaggle of a battle droids. Heads, limbs and torsos flew everywhere.  
“Hi, trooper,” said Danny.  
Danny didn’t take his eyes off the screen. His right thumb mashed several buttons in rapid succession. On the screen, Ashoka drew back her arm and flung her lightsaber with all her might. It flew through the air in a long flat arc, slicing through battle droids and vehicles as it went. Mark’s thumbs twitched again and the weapon, having done its damage returned, to it’s owner’s hand. “Oh,” replied Mark dully, “hi Dad.” He was silent for several minutes. The only sounds in the room were low thrum of Ahsoka’s lightsabers and the high pitched sounds of blaster fire. “You didn’t come home on time last night,” he said, as Ahsoka cut down a super battle droid.  
Danny sighed. “I’m sorry, buddy,” he said, “things ran really late last night. Was it a good episode?”  
A tall figure with a beard appeared on the screen. He wore a long black cloak and a crimson lightsaber blossomed into existence from his clenched fist. Mark’s fingers twitched again and Ahsoka leapt at Count Dooku. The Jedi and Sith twirled, cut and slashed at each other. “I don’t know,” replied Mark. He had played this level four times. His hands were working on autopilot. “I didn’t watch last night’s episode.”  
Danny sighed to himself again. “Why not?” he asked. Mark had been talking about this week’s episode for at least the week. It was the end of the season and Mark had been dying to know how know how the season was going to end. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to him, he thought.  
“Do you know your Mom is supposed to be home?”asked Danny.  
Mark shook his head. On his computer screen, Dooku cut down Ahsoka with a backhanded parry and the words GAME OVER appeared. Mark frowned slightly. He had almost beaten Dooku that time. A menu appeared on the screen. Mark scrolled down to EXIT and hit a button on his game pad. The game’s main menu appeared and he exited the game entirely.  
“Sorry buddy,”said Danny. “You’ll get him next time.”  
“Yeah,” said Mark, with a slightly absent tone in his voice. He set his game pad down on his desk next to his keyboard and turned to a jumbled pile of Lego bricks surrounding a half built Republic gunship. Mark’s grandmother had it given to him for his birthday. Mark flipped open the instruction book, and with the sound of rifling pages flipped to where he had last stopped. He began sorting through the pile of parts and started snapping them together. Danny turned to go. Mark was hyperfixating again, and would remain focused on his Lego kit until it was finished. The house could be burning down around him and he wouldn’t notice, thought Danny.  
Danny left Mark’s bedroom, quietly shutting the door behind him. He turned and walked back down the hall toward the stairs. Danny went downstairs, down the hall and into the kitchen. He open the pantry and pulled out a can of coffee grounds. Danny pried off the lid and deposited a couple of spoonfuls into a metal coffee filter, which he placed over the top of a coffee mug that he got down from a cupboard over the toaster oven. Danny filled the kettle with water out of the kitchen faucet, plugged it in and left it to boil.  
While he waited for the water boil, Danny walked over to the computer sitting on the desk by the back door. He sat down and turned it on. He waited while it hummed to life. After a minute or two, the login screen appeared and Danny typed in his password. He waited for another minute or so, while the computer buffered and loaded his desktop. On the counter, the kettle whistled shrilly, signalling that the water had boiled. Danny got up and crossed to the counter. He picked up the kettle and poured the hot water over the waiting coffee grounds. Danny waited for a moment or two while the hot water seeped through the coffee grounds. The smell of freshly made, hot coffee, wafted up from the mug. Danny took a deep breath, savouring the aroma in his nostrils.  
The smell of a hot cup of coffee revived Danny a little. He emptied the sodden coffee grounds into the organic bin next to the sink and picked up his steaming cup of coffee. Danny walked back over to the computer and sat down. He took a sip of his coffee and put his hand on the mouse. On the screen, the cursor slid across the desktop and Danny opened the web browser. He found the search bar, typed INTEROCEAN EXPEDITIONS and hit enter. After a minute or two the search results came back. At the top of the results page was Interocean’s website. Danny clicked on it and it opened. He spent about fifteen minutes scrolling through the page and clicking on its various links. As far as he could tell, Interocean was just another deep oceans salvage and towing company. He didn’t see anything that would indicate much of a difference between Citadel Marine and Interocean, beyond perhaps a bigger fleet. Danny went back out to search page and started scrolling down the rest of the page of search results. He opened a few links at random and read their contents. Danny frowned slightly, the site he had landed on seemed to be a conspiracy blog. He rolled his eyes and sighed.The Loch Ness Monster, he thought, really?  
Danny went back out to the results page and opened several more links. Each one was more absurd than the last. He closed the last link with a derisive snort. He doubted that Interocean had recovered a flying saucer. He was about to close the web browser when his computer chimed softly. Danny recognized the tone as his e-mail alert. He logged into his e-mail and found a message from Jim waiting in his inbox. Danny clicked on it and it opened. The message was short and to the point. 

Hi Danny,  
I just received a message from my contact at IOE. You and your crew will be briefed on the job in two weeks. Make sure your entire crew is in attendance. Anyone who misses the briefing will have to stay behind, and from what I’m told you’ll need all hands on deck.

Jim

Danny closed the e-mail from Jim and opened a new one. He typed Randy’s e-mail into the address bar. 

Hi Randy,  
Just got an e-mail from Jim. Looks like it’s official. We are supposed be briefed on the job two weeks. Make sure everyone shows up. Jim thinks we’ll need everyone.

Danny

Danny quickly read over his e-mail and then hit send. His computer buffered for moment or two and then chimed again. Randy had received his e-mail and had sent one back to him. Danny opened it and read it. There wasn’t much to it, just a laconic, “yeah, OK, I’ll get right on it.” Danny closed his e-mail and logged off. He cast a glance at the clock on the kitchen wall next to the backdoor. He did a quick mental calculation. He had been awake for eighteen hours. Danny suddenly felt tired. It’s a wonder I didn’t hit someone driving home from the dock, he thought, slightly bemusedly. Everything’s quiet. I should really get some sleep. He downed the last dregs of his coffee and put the mug in the dishwasher. Then he went upstairs and went to bed.


End file.
